It Was Going to Be a Long Weekend
by Tajjas
Summary: Alex had never been much of a kid person. Jamie trusted adults about as far as Brooke could throw one. Unfortunately Alex didn't believe in walking away from a problem when it turned up right in front of him, and Jamie was too practical not to accept the best of a bad set of options. Neither of them thought it was going to go well.
1. Alex: Unexpected Visitor

_Reading through more old stuff over a rainy weekend._

 _Alex had never been much of a kid person. Jamie trusted adults about as far as Brooke could throw one. Unfortunately Alex didn't believe in walking away from a problem when it turned up right in front of him, and Jamie was too practical not to accept the best of a bad set of options. Neither of them thought it was going to go well._

* * *

Thunder cracked overheard, accompanying lightening briefly illuminating the room to about where it should be at half-past noon, but it was gone again just as quickly, and Alex sighed and pushed himself back in his chair. Or started to, anyway, as the spike of pain radiating from his temple warred with the stab of pain shooting up his back for supremacy. He cursed quietly, mostly because he didn't have the breath for anything else.

When he'd woken up this morning he'd have said that he'd welcome anything that distracted him from the ache in his back that always accompanied weather like this, but right now the screaming pain in his head was proving the lie. He didn't get migraines often, but it seemed that this strange, off-season thunderstorm had flipped that switch as well. Damn it.

He braced himself, took a few more shallow breaths, and stood. As was always the case with long holiday weekends, the station was understaffed, and he'd planned on filling in himself if they needed an extra set of hands. He didn't do it often, but it wasn't as if he didn't have the training. Unfortunately, given the way that he was feeling, he was more likely to find himself in need of medical attention than able to provide it. And he wasn't getting anything accomplished with the budgeting forms that were due at the start of next month either.

He passed the main room, making himself nod politely to the team on duty as he did so despite the shooting pain in his head that the motion caused and pushed open the door to the supply room. There wasn't a lot strong enough to handle his migraines that didn't interfere with what he had to take for his back, but right now his _best_ option was going home and rendering himself unconscious, so—

Dark eyes snapped up to meet his.

"What are you doing here?" Alex demanded, as surprised to see Jamie as Jamie clearly was to see him. One of the few concessions that Alex would make to their ages and families, neither Jamie nor anyone else from the high school squad should be working over the holiday. They'd been on last night and wouldn't be again until Monday.

Jamie's expression went blank, and he shrugged. "Sorting bandages." His lip curled a little. "Why, what does it look like?"

Alex gritted his teeth and crossed his arms over his chest. He did not have the patience to deal with Jamie's attitude right now. "That's not what I mean, and you know it. Why are you here?"

Another shrug.

"I'm not in the mood for whatever game you're playing, Jamie. Answer the question."

"I don't know," Jamie muttered, looking away. "Where else should I be?"

"I can't imagine," Alex said dryly, not even trying to cover the sarcasm in his voice. "Perhaps at home eating turkey and watching a parade?" Or whatever came after that—some kind of football game, he thought. He'd never celebrated the typical American holidays growing up and saw no good reason to start now.

Jamie scoffed.

Alex shook his head and then wished that he hadn't when his temple gave a particularly vicious throb. "Jamie, whatever trouble you're planning—"

Jamie looked up at him again, eyes flashing. "I'm not planning any trouble and I'm not bothering anyone, so why can't you just fuck off?"


	2. Jamie: Holiday Plans

_Thanks to everyone who read. As always, reviews are appreciated._

* * *

Jamie hugged his backpack to his chest and stared out from under the overhang of the bus stop at the dripping landscape. That had been pretty remarkably stupid. Even for him. And he was lucky that Alex wasn't the kind of man who'd sort a kid out with a backhand because he'd done everything short of ask for it.

As it was he was suspended for a week so he couldn't even use the station as a place to hide out over the holiday like he'd planned. Given the weather, that was bad enough.

On a normal weekend he'd be hanging out at the park or behind the old theater or at one of his friends' places, but the weather ruled out everything outdoors, and with this stupid holiday not too many people were around. Catie was off with her family at her aunt's house; Micah had gone down to see a grandfather somewhere south of here; Jamie wasn't sure where Tom had gone but he knew he'd been madly packing yesterday evening. Faustus was still in town, but Jamie had worn out his welcome with his family partway through the past summer—plus they celebrated which always made things weird—so that was a no-go too. Kenny's mom and her various assorted boyfriends barely noticed that her own son existed never mind her son's friends which made his place Jamie's default, and also where he'd been sleeping since his last set of foster parents had found a kid they liked better, but….

Jamie shook his head and hugged his backpack a little harder. He wanted to pretend that the needles that he'd seen this morning didn't mean what he thought they did. That his oldest friend hadn't crossed a line that even Jamie wasn't sure he could come back from. But there weren't a lot of other explanations. And as much as he didn't like it, it would explain a few things about Kenny's behavior these past few months. He'd always been a little wilder than Jamie, a little more willing to take a risk, but he'd never actually scared Jamie before. Halloween had been bad for more reasons than even the rest of the so-called bleacher junkies realized.

Jamie knew that he was going to have to go back to Kenny's eventually. It wasn't exactly a choice; if the weather made it too cold to hang out outside he sure as hell wasn't going to try sleeping there, and the storage unit where he kept his bikes was even worse with its concrete floor and metal walls. Especially since the cold rain was supposed to turn to sleet and then snow later today as the thunderstorm moved off and more seasonal weather finally came in. He'd thought—hoped—that maybe that he could find a dark corner at the station to curl up in, he'd done it once or twice before when things got ugly, but obviously that wasn't going to happen now.

Well, it might. If he could hold off until Alex left, anyway. He wasn't on his bike today since while he was a good rider, wet roads were bad enough without dealing with the ice that was bound to form by morning, so that wouldn't betray him if he snuck back in. Staying at the station would save him the walk back to the other side of town, too, at least until morning, since the buses weren't running today. And as much as he hated admitting it, Kenny wasn't likely to think about it one way or the other if he didn't show up.

Jamie twisted sideways, putting his backpack down on the narrow bench and stretching out as best he could. The fact that it was too cold to sleep here hadn't changed in the last two minutes, but he could rest for a little while. And if Alex's car happened to be gone when he passed back by the station...well, it wouldn't be the first time that he'd disobeyed.


	3. Alex: Answers That Weren't

_Thanks to everyone who read. As always, reviews are appreciated._

* * *

Alex sighed, one hand rubbing his back while the other squeezed his forehead. There were exactly as many bandages as Jamie had indicated on the form, exactly as many gauze pads, and the rest of the inventory looked equally as accurate. As much as Alex had checked in the last hour anyway, which was probably twice as long as it had taken Jamie to do it, and in the end it still didn't tell Alex what Jamie had been doing here.

He wasn't going to get an answer from the silence, though, and Jamie was long gone.

He didn't know what had gotten into Jamie. The kid could be a handful and a half when he was in the mood, sure, far more so than any of the self-described 'overachievers' on the squad, but he and Alex had butted heads enough times that he knew where the lines were. And he certainly knew better than to use that kind of language.

Of course, Alex hadn't done much to diffuse the situation. Hell, if you wanted to get technical, he'd been the one to instigate the confrontation. He could have been far less accusatory than he had been. He _should_ have been less accusatory; however Jamie tried to hide it, he was a good kid, and Alex knew it. Today was just...not a good day.

With a sigh, Alex steeled himself to stand, grabbed a bottle of the strongest Tylenol they had, and with a quick word for the team lead on duty headed for his car. Between his back and his head he was of no use here. And the next time that Jamie was on duty he'd try again and see if he could get a better answer out of the teenager when he was a little calmer. Hopefully when they were both a little calmer.

Getting into his car was always an interesting exercise when his back was screaming, and the fact that he didn't want to move his head didn't precisely improve the situation, but eventually he was in and turning onto the main road. As much as he wasn't a fan of holidays, he was very glad of the lack of traffic that should mean that he was home and in bed within twenty minutes. Right now, unconsciousness would be a gift.

The sight of a figure stretched out on the bench at the bus stop on the corner made him frown. Homelessness wasn't generally a problem in this neighborhood, but—

Shadows faded as he made the turn, his headlights illuminating the figure fully despite the heavy clouds overhead and light rain still falling, and Alex swore and pulled over. He might not know what was going on with Jamie, but leaving him lying on a bus stop bench in the rain on a day that the buses weren't even running wasn't something that he was willing to consider.

Jamie didn't move when he shut off the car and approached, and Alex reached down and gave the narrow shoulder a quick shake. "Jamie, wake up!"

Jamie's shirt was damp under his hand, but he only had a moment to register that as Jamie came awake with a snarl.

"Stop!" Alex barked as Jamie flailed his arms, forcing Alex to jerk away or get hit. The abrupt motion was enough to leave him gasping in pain from his back—and making him see stars from his head—and by the time he could focus again, Jamie was pressed against the side wall of the stop, eyes wide. "Jamie, it's me!" he snapped.

Jamie blinked hard, looking around for a minute before his eyes met Alex's. "Alex? What happened?"

"You were asleep," Alex said. "Why, I don't know. You know it's nearly freezing out here, don't you? You're smarter than that."

"I don't…that wasn't supposed to happen." Jamie swiped at his eyes, looking far younger than he was. "I just wanted to rest for a little bit."

"What are you doing here?" Alex pressed, despite what had happened at the station. "The busses aren't even running today."

"I know. I just…." He shrugged, looking at the ground.

"Come on," Alex said, gesturing towards his car. "I'll give you a ride. Where's home?" He wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea, or the delay in getting himself home, but leaving Jamie here was not an option.

"I don't know."

"What? Where's your family?"

Jamie scowled and started to snap something and then shook his head, cutting off the half-formed words. "I don't…whatever. Fine. Don't know, don't care, in prison, and in a nursing home over in Crossville but she doesn't know who I am all the time so even if the weather was good enough to make the drive it's always a crapshoot if I should go or not. Happy?" He shrugged and then grabbed his backpack off the bench, slinging it over his shoulder and taking a step out of the bus stop. "It doesn't matter. Thanks for waking me up. Sorry I ran my mouth before."

"Jamie, stop," Alex ordered. "Where are you supposed to be?"

"Nowhere."

"On Thanksgiving?"

"Well, my foster parents dumped me last week, Catie's out of town, everyone else is celebrating with their families…the station was the best option I had, so nope, nowhere is all there is right now."

Alex frowned. He was aware that no one in Jamie's family had ever showed up at the station, even on the couple of 'family nights' they'd held at Jennifer's insistence, but it had never even crossed his mind that Jamie might be in foster care. He'd assumed that the social worker who'd contacted him before Jamie's placement on the squad had been involved because of Jamie's juvenile record. And the 'dumped' comment…Alex didn't know much about how foster care was supposed to work, but that did not sound good.

"I'm fine," Jamie said, taking another step away. "It's not a big deal."


	4. Jamie: Destinations

_Thanks to everyone who read. As always, reviews are appreciated._

* * *

"Stop. Look at me, please."

It was an order not a request, however Alex had phrased it, and it was about the last thing that Jamie wanted to do, but he'd already gotten himself into enough trouble for one day. And all the nap he'd taken had done was made him more tired, if that was even possible. He lifted his eyes.

Whatever Alex read in Jamie's expression made his lips tighten. "When did you last eat? Breakfast?"

Jamie shrugged and returned his gaze to the concrete. It wasn't an answer, and Alex was probably going to yell at him again, but the real answer wasn't going to do him any favors either. Yesterday's lunch at school hadn't had much worth saving—nothing that had lasted past dinner—and he'd used up all the expired packs of crackers at the station last weekend.

Alex sighed. "Not breakfast either, then. Come with me."

Jamie's head jerked up. "What?"

"I'm not sure what's open today, but there's bound to be something. Let's go find some lunch."

That…. Jamie blinked. He wasn't sure what that was. Well, not supposed to happen, definitely. Alex didn't like him on good days; he sure as hell didn't offer to get him food.

"Come on," Alex repeated, taking a step backwards. One foot stepped off the curb but rather than looking annoyed as his foot landed in water, he went white and a look of pure pain crossed his face as he stumbled backwards.

"Alex!"

Jamie had enough presence of mind to grab Alex's arm before he could fall, but rather than stabilizing all of the color drained from his face and he lurched forwards this time, one hand clapping across his mouth. It was the universal sign for about-to-throw-up, and Jamie moved out of the way as best he could without letting go because he wasn't too sure that Alex was going to be able to stay upright on his own. He _really_ did not look good.

"Shit," Alex said quietly as he finally straightened again, one hand scrubbing at his mouth.

"Alex?" Jamie asked cautiously, releasing his arm and stepping back. "What's wrong?" It had been more dry heaves than anything else, but Jamie knew full well that those weren't pleasant, and he wasn't sure that he'd ever heard Alex swear before. "Oh." Common sense finally caught up with him as he recognized that they were standing in freezing cold rain. Apparently he was already so wet that he wasn't even noticing it anymore. "Your back?"

"My back I'm used to." He sighed. "I could really do without the migraine, though."

Jamie winced in sympathy. Migraines weren't one of his usual problems, those was allergies and asthma, thanks, and even if they'd told him that he'd outgrow the latter it hadn't happened yet, but he'd had a few and they pretty much sucked. "You don't need to eat, you need to sleep." Not that Alex wouldn't already know that.

"And you need to be somewhere that isn't a bus stop," Alex returned. "As of now you haven't told me where that is."

Sure he had. It just happened to be nowhere. Even if it wasn't useful, it was still true. "I'll be fine. Really," Jamie said. He might not like talking about the situation, but it wasn't like it was anything new. "I can take care of myself. I'm used to it."

"You're sixteen, and I am not leaving you here. End of discussion."

He tilted his head, and Jamie wasn't sure what he thought of the calculating expression in his eyes. Well, he thought that Alex made him nervous, but that was nothing new either.

"Straight answer," Alex said. "Is anyone expecting you anywhere this afternoon?"

Jamie shook his head despite himself.

"All right. Come on." He stepped back, more carefully this time. "You need food, and I need sleep, and I know of one place where both of those things can happen."

Jamie hesitated.

"Now, Jamie."

Jamie wanted to refuse, but it wasn't like there were a lot of other options. Not beyond starting the hike back to Kenny's, anyway. Assuming that Alex would even allow it, which Jamie kind of suspected that he wouldn't, and it would be a cold day in Hell before Jamie told Alex about him—or why he didn't want to go back there—never mind ask Alex to take him down into that neighborhood. He climbed in on the passenger side when Alex indicated and waited for Alex to get in as well.

The heater came on as soon as Alex turned the car on, and Jamie started to shiver belatedly. Apparently it had been colder out than he'd realized. "It'll warm up in a minute," Alex said.

Jamie nodded.

"Where have you been sleeping if not your foster parent's place?"

"Kenny's mostly." And apparently so much for not talking about that. He shrugged. "He's a friend. Usually."

"Is he going to miss you?"

Jamie shook his head and pressed himself closer to the window, and thankfully Alex didn't push. "Where are we going?" he asked after a minute. It was probably something that he should have asked before getting in, but it wasn't like it would have changed anything.

"Home. Mine."

That was enough to make Jamie jerk his head around, eyes going wide. It was weird enough for Alex to offer food, never mind—

"It's that or you think of a safe place for me to drop you off," Alex said, cutting him off before Jamie could object. "This is not a day for you to be wandering around outside."

Jamie wanted to argue, but if he had a better option he'd already be there. He shook his head again, curling back against the window.


	5. Alex: History and Current Events

_Thanks to everyone who read. As always, reviews are appreciated._

* * *

Wind whistling overhead woke Alex, and it took him a moment to focus. And then to remember why he was in bed when his clock indicated that it was only about five in the afternoon. Back, head, storm. And a holiday. And Jamie. Right.

He braced himself and sat up slowly, glad that while his back objected, it was with less ferocity than it had been earlier today, and there was only the lingering remains of a headache. Which didn't change the fact that what sounded like a nasty storm was still raging outside, and there was a teenager that he had no idea what to do with in his living room.

For a moment when he entered the living room he thought that Jamie had taken off, which was not an improvement considering said storm, but when he looked over the back of the couch he found Jamie curled on his side fast asleep. He should have seen that coming given that Jamie had fallen asleep in an open bus stop earlier. At least Jamie had gone ahead and changed into the sweat suit that Alex had tossed him. Even if it didn't fit quite right given their differing builds, at least it was dry.

The television was on, albeit muted, some brightly-colored animated movie playing, and Alex retrieved the remote from the low table in front of Jamie and switched over to the weather channel. Rain had finally given way to snow that was getting heavier by the hour, no surprise there, and Alex wasn't surprised by the city-wide recommendation that no one without pressing need go out on the streets. Not everyone would listen, there were always a few idiots convinced that they knew better than anyone else, but the fewer people on the roads the fewer people likely to lose control and hit something and require his teams to go out.

Per the report the storm was supposed lighten again by tomorrow morning but not pass entirely for twenty-four to forty-eight hours after that, and he looked at Jamie again and then pushed himself to his feet and went to check his fridge. He believed in staying indoors when that was requested, but while he had plenty of food on hand if he was just feeding himself, he wasn't sure how well equipped he was to deal with a teenager. Jamie was still young enough to be eating half his weight in food a day.

He looked pretty well supplied, though, in fact there were a few things that need to be eaten soon or he'd have to toss them. He needed to stop picking up takeout on the way home.

A quick call to the station was enough to confirm that all of their afternoon callouts had all involved accidents on rapidly-worsening roads, although fortunately nothing more severe than bruises and lacerations at this point, and after a reminder that they'd probably start seeing some exposure cases soon he hung up and checked the time. Still a little earlier than he usually ate, but unlike Jamie—at least he hoped unlike Jamie, since he'd pointed the kid at the sandwich supplies before heading for his bedroom—he'd skipped lunch.

He sorted out the vegetables that would need to be consumed soonest. Stir fry was a good use for the mismatched lot and reasonably quick as well, and he put some rice on before starting to chop.

The vegetables had just started to sizzle in the pan when a quiet voice from behind him drew his attention. "Hey."

"Hey," Alex returned, turning to look at him. "How are you feeling?" Jamie was pale, but that was nothing new, and even if he was still rubbing sleep from his eyes he didn't look quiet as exhausted as he had earlier.

"Okay," Jamie said quietly. "You?"

"Much better." He indicated the pan on the stove. "Are you hungry?"

Jamie shrugged.

"Words, please. Do you like stir fry?"

"I like most everything."

Alex nodded. "Then pour us something to drink—there's milk and orange juice in the fridge or water if you prefer; water for me, please—and set the table. Glasses are up there," he couldn't remember if he'd told Jamie that before and he nodded to the cabinet to the left of the sink, "and silverware is in the drawer to the right of the fridge."

Jamie stared at Alex for a moment before nodding and turning to do as he said.

Alex wasn't used to Jamie being so quiet, but this was a weird situation for both of them, and he decided to focus on finishing the food. Talking could come later. When he figured out what the hell to say. Although, if Jamie didn't have parents, foster or otherwise, presumably Alex should talk to his social worker if only to let whoever that was know where Jamie was staying. "Do you have your social worker's phone number?" he asked after Jamie finished filling two glasses with water.

"Yeah. There's no point in calling her, though. She'll find me a new place as soon as she can." He hesitated. "I mean, thanks for bringing me back here, earlier, but I don't need to stay here. I can go to Kenny's or wherever, I don't need to bother you."

Kenny's—wherever that meant—was where he'd been avoiding going earlier, Alex recalled, and based on the 'or wherever' comment he wasn't really thrilled about the idea now either. "They're telling people to stay off the streets, and I have no intention of ignoring that given the ice sheet that has to be under the snow," he said. "And since the buses aren't running and you don't need to be walking anywhere in this weather, I'm afraid you will be staying here for at least another day or two. Don't you think she'll want to know where you are until then?"

Jamie shrugged. "She's known me for a long time. I always turn up in one piece eventually."

There was a great deal wrong with that statement, starting with the fact that it was a sixteen year old boy making it, and ALex debated how much to press. At least until hot oil spattered out of the pan and landed on his hand, distracting him momentarily. "Get a couple plates, please. That cabinet up there." His back was being a little more cooperative now, but he didn't plan to push it. "Thank you." He pushed the wok off the hot burner, handed one plate back to Jamie and dished himself a decent helping of the stir fry and rice. Jamie hesitated but did the same thing when Alex gestured for him to do so.

He took the seat as far from Alex as possible at the table, no surprise there, and didn't show any inclination to talk any more, but unfortunately for him Alex still had questions that needed answering.

"How long have you been in foster care?" Alex asked after Jamie had settled a little and taken a few bites. "What happened to your parents?" Jamie had given him what sounded like a list, but it hadn't been a pleasant list from what little he recalled. Something about not knowing and prison and a couple others.

"Since I was eleven. Mom took off a long time before that, like around the time I started school, and Dad ended up in prison, so…." He shrugged. "Not a lot of other options."

"I thought you had a grandmother." The camera she'd given Jamie had contributed to the whole wallet fiasco, as he recalled, even if he—Alex—damn well should have known better by then.

"I do, but she's in an assisted living place down in Crossville. Some kind of dementia that no one will give me a straight answer about except that they don't think it's Alzheimer's."

"They might not know," Alex offered. "Dementia isn't the easiest thing to quantify."

"Maybe that's it. Anyway, sometimes she's okay, like she remembered my birthday this year, but other times she thinks I'm my brother or the neighbor or no one. They moved her there before everything happened, after she set a couple fires in her kitchen by forgetting about things, so going to live with her was never an option."

"What about this brother? Is he older or younger?"

"Older. He's in college, or he was last I heard, anyway. Dropping out's not really his style so it's probably still true, but I think he'll graduate this year."

"You can't stay with him? Although I guess that is kind of young." Not as bad as Jamie wandering the streets himself, maybe, but someone in what was probably his early twenties trying to raise a teenager would be a pretty rough situation. Probably for both of them.

Jamie scoffed. "They asked. Hell, they asked the day he turned eighteen, and they keep asking, although I'm not supposed to know that. He keeps saying 'no.'" Another shrug. "We're not close."

Alex opened his mouth and then shut it again. That was…he didn't even know what that was. He had an older brother and a younger sister, and even if he wouldn't say that the three of them were especially _close_ , that didn't mean that they didn't look out for each other. He'd never have left Cathy with no one when she was a teenager, and Pete wouldn't have done that to either of them. "So what happened with your foster parents to leave you on your own this weekend?" he asked rather than pressing further on the subject of family.

He didn't intend it to be anything more than a simple question, but Jamie hunched inwards and went from eating to pushing his food around the plate. "You don't like me, and you only see me a couple times a week. You seriously think anyone is going to keep me around for more than a couple months if they have to see me every day? I doubt they'd even take me for that long if it wasn't the fastest way to rotate to a kid they might actually want." One shoulder twitched. "This set got a better option last weekend so that was it."

"What?"

"Foster parents get kids faster if they say they'll take anyone, but the only kids anyone actually wants are the cute little ones. Mostly the _really_ little ones, the babies that aren't screwed up yet. Thing is, there aren't all that many babies floating around, so they get stuck with one of the rest of us, they let us hang around for a couple months until they can come up with some reason that it doesn't work, we rotate out, and the next kid rotates in. Rinse, repeat, maybe they eventually get the kid they want. The little girl placed with the Jamisons last week is pretty young, and they were decent as far as foster parents go, so maybe this is their good one."

"Jamie, stop." Alex shook his head, trying to figure out where to even start with that. "First of all, I like you just fine."

"Yeah, right."

"Hey. I'm not in the habit of saying things that I don't mean, you should know that by now." He frowned. "Look at me please. You might drive me a little crazy sometimes—I suspect I do the same to you—but that doesn't mean that I don't like you. Okay?"

Dark eyes met his for a moment and then Jamie went back to poking at the food in front of him.

It wasn't the response he'd have preferred, but under the circumstances he doubted that pressing would get him any further. And given everything else he'd just heard...well, the important thing was still what was going on with Jamie right now so he focused on that. "Your social worker is okay with you just wandering around between placements?"

"Not really, but when the group homes are full it's either that or juvie. And they're always full if you're over ten. Even she'll admit that crashing on someone's floor is a hell of a lot better than being locked up."

Alex sighed. "After you finish dinner, you get me her number. At the very least she should know that you're not staying with your friend at the moment."


	6. Jamie: Safe Night

_Thanks to everyone who read, and as always, reviews are appreciated._

* * *

Jamie was watching the hall that Alex had disappeared down a lot more closely than he was watching the movie playing on the television in front of him, but then, the television wasn't calling his social worker. Best case, Sonja didn't answer, but it wasn't like Alex wouldn't leave a message or call her back or whatever so that was just putting off the inevitable. Worst case…well, the worst case involved Jamie ending up in juvie, but pretty close to that was Sonja getting in trouble for trying to keep him out of juvie. If he was very lucky Alex would just stuck to telling her that he was here and fine and that would be the end of it.

Especially since, weirdly enough, he was here and he was fine.

He'd been pretty out of it when he and Alex had arrived earlier, but Alex had been too so it kind of evened out. Alex had waved Jamie in the direction of the kitchen saying something about sandwich stuff in the fridge and to watch whatever he wanted on television then headed for what Jamie assumed was his room, only to reappear again a few minutes later with a dry sweat suit and another wave in the direction of a bathroom. That had been the last that Jamie had seen of him for a while, but with that information he'd managed to get himself changed and then had given in and made himself a sandwich. And then a second one even when he knew that he probably shouldn't because he'd been hungrier than he'd realized. He hadn't been about to start poking around in cabinets or anything like that, but a couple of handfuls of water out of the tap worked well enough to drink, and then he'd gone and turned the television on as Alex had suggested. And then promptly fallen asleep.

He'd woken up to the smell of more food, and then Alex had expected him to sit and eat like it was somehow normal to be brought home by his sort-of-boss. Well, sit and eat and answer questions, but Jamie had known that that was coming even if he didn't like it. His time in foster care and how it had come about wasn't exactly his favorite subject, but it wasn't like he hadn't learned how to edit over the years, and since Alex had nodded and eventually stopped with the questions Jamie had figured that it had gone about as well as it could.

Well, except for the part where Alex said that he didn't dislike Jamie. That part was still weird and confusing because even if Alex really didn't say things that he didn't mean so far as Jamie had seen, adults never liked him.

"Jamie, could you come in here, please," Alex called before he could get lost in those thoughts again.

Jamie pushed himself to his feet and headed towards Alex's voice. He hadn't been on that side of the house before—he hadn't really been anywhere in the house except the living room and kitchen and was pretty okay with that all things considered—but please or no, that hadn't been a request.

Alex was sitting at a desk inside the door at the end of a short hall but he pushed himself to his feet at Jamie's entrance and handed him the phone, indicating for him to take the chair. "Your social worker would like to talk to you privately for a few minutes. I'll be in the kitchen."

Jamie nodded and sat down, putting the phone to his ear. "Hello?"

"Jamie?" Sonja asked. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. I'm fine."

"Are you—" A child shouted in the background, cutting her off. "Hold on for a minute, would you?" She didn't wait for his agreement, her voice suddenly muffled. "Corrie! I said that you and your cousins could play tag if you played in the basement! If you want to play upstairs, you need to play _quietly_." Another rustle, and then her voice was clear again. "Sorry about that; with the weather we can't send the kids outside to play, and it's getting to be a madhouse in here. But are you sure you're okay? I thought you were planning to stay with one of your friends over the holiday. Kenny, right? Did something come up?"

"Not exactly," or not that he was going to tell her about, anyway, "but I was at the station, and the snowstorm really kicked up, and…." He trailed off with a shrug that she couldn't see, not sure how much Alex had already said to her but not about to volunteer that he'd fallen asleep in a bus stop during the pre-snow rainstorm. She generally accepted that he could take care of himself, but there were limits. "Anyway, the roads are pretty bad now so I'm kind of stuck here."

"And you're okay with that? He said that it was just the two of you there."

Jamie flushed as he realized what she was asking, but it was a fair question. If it had been someone besides Alex it might be an issue, but Alex didn't really bother him. Well, he made him a little nervous, but it was nothing major, just the usual nervous that all adults made him. Way better than if he was the fake-friendly type like some of the adults at school who insisted on getting too close. "Yeah, it's…I'm fine." He looked behind him to make sure that Alex really had left. "He's okay."

"You're sure?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"All right. Be good, remember to thank Dr. Freeman, and call me if you need anything."

"I will." Well, mostly. He'd do the second and try for the first, but for the third not likely. Especially given that she probably wouldn't be able to do anything for him anyway. It wasn't that she didn't try, the foster care system just generally sucked if you weren't a cute little kid. She knew that as well as he did. "Do you want to talk to Alex—Dr. Freeman—again?" he asked.

"No, thank you. Have a good weekend."

"Bye." He put the phone down and pushed himself to his feet. Apparently Alex's office was part of his bedroom, with a bed off towards one wall and what looked like a bathroom and closet past that, but Jamie had better sense than to go snooping and headed back out into the main area.

"That was quick," Alex said, looking over from the sink.

Jamie shrugged. "She just wanted to make sure that I was okay. And thanks for letting me stay here."

Alex nodded. "Just a minute and I'll show you where the spare room is."

"Can I help?" Since he'd entered foster care Jamie had learned that doing dishes was a weirdly perilous activity—How lazy was he that he couldn't just wash whatever by hand? Why was he soaking all the dishes in the same dirty water? Why did he leave the water running, couldn't he see that was a waste? Why did he use so much soap? Why did he use so little soap? Or, conversely, what was wrong with him, hadn't he ever seen a dishwasher before? Why hadn't he pre-rinsed; obviously the dishwasher couldn't handle those kinds of stuck-on hits? Why did he pre-rinse so long, didn't he know how a dishwasher worked? Was he blind that he couldn't see that they had a super-duper-dishwasher-3000 that didn't need pre-rinsing at all? How come he'd used so much detergent? Why didn't he use enough detergent? Why didn't he fit in more dishes? Why didn't he put in fewer dishes?—but at least at the station Alex tended to say what he wanted done which made things a lot easier. And since he'd fed Jamie in the first place, even Jamie knew that it was rude not to ask.

"Please," Alex said, indicating the two pans sitting on the counter. "Could you dry those and put them in the cabinet to the right of the stove?"

Jamie nodded and took the towel hanging on the stove, doing as he said as Alex finished loading the dishwasher himself.

"Where's your backpack?" Alex asked.

Jamie went to retrieve it from where he'd jammed it between the couch and the wall.

"Okay. Spare room is this way." He gestured for Jamie to follow and turned down the hall on the side of the living room opposite his room. "The bathroom is there." He frowned. "I think I told you that earlier."

Jamie nodded. Alex really had been as out of it as he had.

"There should be soap, toothpaste, a spare toothbrush, all of that, in one of the drawers. Just dig around and let me know if you can't find something you need."

"I've got my stuff," Jamie said, indicating his backpack, and then wished that he hadn't as he caught Alex's sharp look. Probably not the smartest idea to let Alex know that he was pretty much prepared to sleep wherever he could most nights.

"The spare room is here," Alex said without commenting, opening a door at the end of the hall. "It's a little chilly since I normally keep it closed up, but if you can open that it'll catch up with the rest of the house pretty quick."

Jamie reached up and flipped the tab on the ceiling vent that Alex indicated, feeling warm air starting to enter the room as he lowered his arm. The room was already better than the converted porch he'd been living on with the foster parents he'd had last winter, but he could see the snow building up outside the windowsill and he hated being cold.

"There are extra blankets and a couple pillows in the trunk if you want them," Alex continued. "Why don't you add your clothes to the pile I'm going to toss in the washer and then find something else to watch on television while it warms up in here? Unless you've got homework you should be doing?"

"It's a holiday," Jamie pointed out. Even if it wasn't one he celebrated, you didn't do homework on a holiday. He had like four days before he had to go back to school. And it wasn't like his homework always—or even often—got done anyway.

Alex's lips twitched. "Right. TV, then. Or if you like to read, you're welcome to borrow something."

Jamie frowned. He didn't doubt that Alex had books, but he was pretty sure that he hadn't seen any. Maybe there had been a few in Alex's room, but that was about it.

"You were pretty tired," Alex said, indicating for Jamie to follow. The room at the opposite end of the hall had a door on each side, and Jamie recognized vaguely that this must have been how they'd come in from the garage, but he definitely didn't remember the walls of shelves lined with books. "If you like mystery or science fiction or medical journals there should be something here that you'll like. If you do borrow something, you put it back where you found it when you're done, understand?"

Jamie nodded. He actually did like reading since libraries weren't bad places to kill time and there was only so long he was allowed to play on the computer, and since Alex had offered he might poke around a little. The end of Thanksgiving meant the start of constant Christmas movies and commercials and very-special-episodes in his experience, and he didn't have any more use for that holiday than this one.

"Toss your clothes in the washer," Alex said. "And then you can see if there's something you're interested in."


	7. Alex: Offers

_Thanks to everyone who read; as always reviews are appreciated._

* * *

"Jamie, up," Alex ordered. "School."

"'s cancelled," Jamie mumbled, barely audible from underneath a pile of blankets.

"Not today. Up." School had been cancelled yesterday, extending the long weekend slightly, but they'd had the plows running twenty-four hours straight, and the roads were looking much better this morning.

Jamie groaned but his head emerged from the blankets a moment later, one hand scrubbing at his eyes.

Alex hid a smile. Jamie was not a morning person by any stretch of the imagination. "Come on. Come have some breakfast."

Jamie came out of the bedroom in his own clothes rather than one of Alex's spare sweat suits a few minutes later, making a beeline for the coffee pot. Alex privately thought that he was a little young to be drinking coffee regularly, but when he'd asked Jamie had looked at him like he had three heads and had said something about his mother putting coffee in his cereal. And it wasn't like the kids didn't drink just as much coffee at the station as the other teams did.

After coffee Jamie's focus went to the tabletop, and Alex pushed a cereal bowl in his direction. Once Jamie was awake, he tended to be a lot more hesitant, and never mind that Alex had insisted that he eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day that he'd been here. "Have some breakfast," Alex repeated, "And I'll drop you off at school."

"You don't have to," Jamie said in surprise, finally looking at him. "If you can point me at a city bus stop, I can get there."

"About two hours late if you're lucky," Alex said. "At least the way the busses seem to run in this neighborhood. I need to be at the hospital by nine anyway." He also needed to spend some time at the station today since he hadn't gone last night. He would have if Jamie hadn't been suspended since Jamie would have needed a ride, but people had finally taken the hint to stay indoors so it had been quiet anyway.

Jamie's expression was more than a little suspicious, but eventually he nodded and muttered a thank you. Alex poured himself another cup of coffee—probably just as well that he hadn't commented on Jamie's—and debated what he was about to say. He'd never had much luck understanding children, not even when he'd been one, and Jamie was far more inclined to make trouble than the few other teenagers that he did deal with on a regular basis. But he still wasn't a _bad_ kid, and as much as the whole foster care-turned-to-staying with random friend situation bothered Alex, some of the questions that Jamie's social worker had asked bothered him more. He'd have said that it was the nature of society today that had made her concerned about a teenage boy staying alone with a man, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized that her questions had been pretty pointedly about Jamie and if Jamie was okay with staying with him.

Jamie's behavior had been a little odd, too. It wasn't…doctors and first responders were mandated reporters, and he kept that training up to date along with everything else, and nothing about Jamie's behavior had approached that level. He hadn't been comfortable, but then, neither had Alex. But there had been a wariness there that Alex wasn't used to from him.

Then again the two of them rarely interacted one-on-one, and when they did it was generally some kind of adversarial situation, so maybe Jamie's reactions made sense. It wasn't like he'd avoided Alex or anything, he'd just been quiet. And very hesitant to ask questions or do anything that Alex hadn't suggested first.

"Jamie," he finally said.

Jamie's head jerked up from his cereal.

Alex held up his hands in the standard no-threat gesture. That had come out a more harshly than he'd intended. Mostly because he still wasn't sure what he was about to say, even if he couldn't see a lot of other options. "I don't know what your plans are as far as staying with one of your friends, but whatever they turn out to be, you let me know," he said, lowering his voice a little. "If you don't have my phone number, I'll give it to you. And if it doesn't work out, you can come back here until your social worker finds something more permanent. Okay?"

Jamie stared.

"Jamie?" he prompted.

"You're serious." A pause. "Why?"

It wasn't a question that a sixteen year old should have to ask, but Alex answered anyway. "Because you don't need to be wandering the streets at all hours of the night. Or day, for that matter." It was one thing to know, intellectually, that there were homeless children out there; it was another to actually know the child in question.

Jamie stared for a moment longer and then shrugged and looked away. "I'll be okay."

Alex didn't argue the assertion, although he did repeat the offer and made sure that Jamie took one of his cards before they got in the car.

His hospital shift kept him busy until mid-afternoon and then he headed down to the station. The long weekend had given him enough time to get caught up on paperwork—temporarily at least, more was bound to appear by the end of the week—and he submitted what he needed to and was about to pack up and head out when he saw Hank heading down the hallway. "Hello," he called from the office. "I didn't expect to see you here today."

"Forgot my math book last night," Hank said, taking a few steps back to look through the doorway. "Just stopped by to grab it."

"Ah. It looked like things went all right last night?"

"Yeah. Two minor accidents, but nothing we couldn't handle. Not too many people were on the roads besides the plow crews."

Alex nodded. That matched up with the reports he'd seen. "Thanks. Have a good evening."

"You too."

"Hey," Alex said as Hank turned to go. "Quick question if you've got a minute. Do you happen to know a kid named Kenny? I think he's a friend of Jamie's."

"Yeah, I know him," Hank said with a grimace. "Or at least I know who he is. They hang out together. He's bad news."

"What do you mean?"

Hank shrugged. "Jamie'll smart back or do little stuff he knows he shouldn't, but he's not…I didn't realize it until he started working here, but he's a pretty nice guy. I mean, he'll go out of his way to help most anyone, even when he probably shouldn't. Kenny, on the other hand, he's just nasty." He shook his head. "I haven't seen it personally, but he's got a reputation for picking fights and fighting dirty, and some of that I heard from people I trust. And I know that he comes to school high or drunk more than occasionally and that he's been caught smoking _at_ school a few times. I've never seen Jamie doing any of that and I'm sure he'd never hurt anyone."

"Why are they friends, then?" Alex asked.

Hank shrugged. "Got me. Is Jamie suspended for the week because of Kenny?"

"That's private," Alex reminded him. "You can ask him if you want to."

Hank hesitated for a moment and then nodded. "Sure. See you Thursday."

"See you," Alex echoed as Hank continued down the hall, reaching for the bag by his feet. It didn't take him long to pack up, and he couldn't help a quick check of his phone as he did so. No messages so nothing from Jamie. And Hank's information was…not good news. Alex had caught Jamie smoking once, although never after that—admittedly, he'd told Jamie off pretty harshly for it so maybe that wasn't a surprise—and he'd certainly never seen any signs of drugs or alcohol. He'd never tolerate either around the station. Going to a house with that kind of thing going on, though, presumably including a parent or parents who either allowed it or didn't pay enough attention to end it…it might be a better situation than juvenile detention, and it was certainly an improvement over sleeping out in the snow, but not by as much as Alex might like. Especially if this kid really did have a habit of being violent because everything he'd seen from Jamie matched what Hank said. And what had Jamie said? He and this Kenny were 'usually' friends?

The traffic now seemed to be making up for quiet over the weekend and it took him longer to get home than it should have, but he was glad that the light hadn't faded completely when he saw the figure sitting on the floor of the porch as close to the house as he could get. And then realized that he was an idiot and should have given Jamie a key if he was going to offer to let the kid stay here because freezing on Alex's porch wasn't any better than at than a bus stop.


	8. Jamie: Acceptance

_Thanks to everyone who read and to tomfeltonlover1991 for reviewing._

* * *

He was probably an idiot. Hell, he was definitely an idiot. But he wasn't soaked to the skin this time, and if Alex had meant what he'd said, Jamie could get dinner here and curl up in the spare bedroom and it would be warm. And there would be no drunks anywhere. He couldn't actually imagine Alex drunk.

That assumed that Alex had meant what he'd said, though, and Jamie pushed himself warily to his feet as Alex pulled up the driveway. If he was wrong and Alex hadn't meant, it there was still enough time to catch a bus back down to Kenny's. He'd just…deal. An echo of rough laughter rang in his ears and he shivered a little.

From what Jamie could tell from his expression, Alex didn't look upset at his presence, though, gesturing for him to enter the garage ahead of the car.

"Hey," Alex greeted as he climbed out, shutting the main door behind them with the press of a button.

"Hey." Jamie had no idea how to ask 'Did you mean it?' when he was almost already basically in someone's house, so he didn't say anything.

Alex waved him aside so he could get to the inner door, unlocking it and letting them in. "No luck with your friends, I take it?"

"Micah's family came back with some kind of flu, and Tom's not back at all yet. Bad weather and cancelled flight or whatever, I guess. Catie is, but…." He shrugged. Given how crowded her place was, it would never be an option overnight even if it wasn't not an option for other reasons. And Faustus had looked uncomfortable enough when he'd asked that Jamie had taken the question back immediately. He hadn't meant to stay so often last summer that he'd reached the point of being unwelcome, but clearly it had happened. "Went down to Kenny's, but his mom's boyfriend has some friends over and Kenny wasn't around." He hesitated a minute. "It's not…I can go back and wait for him if that's better." Kenny wouldn't stay out all night any more than Jamie would in this weather, even if Jamie wasn't sure he'd care for the state he'd be in when he did get back.

"If it was a problem I wouldn't have offered," Alex said. "I didn't get around to going to the grocery store, but there are still a few hamburgers left for dinner if you don't might using bread for a bun."

Jamie shook his head immediately. He'd saved a few things from lunch just in case, but actual food was part of the reason that he'd come here.

"Okay. Why don't you drop your stuff in the spare room?"

Jamie did as he said and then headed for the kitchen. "Can I help with something?" That much had stayed true, when Alex wanted something done he was pretty clear about how. Or if he just said 'yes', he didn't get upset with whatever way Jamie picked.

"Set the table," Alex said. "And the vegetables should be about done."

Vegetables generally meant a bag of something steaming in the microwave, but once you added butter they were actually pretty good, and he put out the plates and silverware quickly and then went to retrieve a bowl.

"Napkins too, please."

Jamie tensed automatically, but it was a request—or an order phrased as a request, anyway—not a reprimand. He finished with the vegetables and was setting the napkins on the table when Alex pulled the burgers off the grill plate. Four, and if Alex might not eat two, he wouldn't object if Jamie did. Hell, if the past couple days had been anything to go by, he'd expect Jamie to.

Alex wasn't one for a lot of talking while he was eating, and Jamie was pretty okay with the silence. The last thing he wanted to do was answer questions. And the hamburgers were tasty, sandwich bread or not, especially when he added cheese. Way better than school food.

Unfortunately it was too good to last, and Alex nodded to the living room as they finished loading the dishwasher. "Go have a seat. I want to talk to you for a few minutes."

Jamie wished that he hadn't put his backpack away, at least then he'd have something to fiddle with. He didn't, though, so he settled for taking a seat on the far end of the couch and flexing his hands against the cushions. He was still at it when Alex joined him.

"Jamie, calm down. You aren't in trouble."

Jamie shrugged and kept his focus on the carpet.

"Jamie?"

He kept his mouth shut, and after a minute Alex took a seat on the opposite end of the couch.

"I'm not angry, and you're not in trouble," Alex repeated. "I just wanted to talk to you for a minute. I assume that your social worker is still working on a new placement?"

Jamie nodded. Not that he'd talked to her, but he knew the routine. He didn't expect to hear anything for at least a couple weeks, maybe longer with Christmas coming up—no one wanted a new kid around this time of year, especially not a boy his age—but she'd show up at school for him eventually.

"Words, please," Alex prompted.

"Yeah," Jamie managed.

"Well, I don't know where exactly you were planning to stay until then, but if you were thinking about bouncing between friends' houses, why don't you just stay here instead?"

Jamie's head jerked up. "What?" He hadn't expected Alex to offer what he had this morning, and he definitely hadn't planned on taking him up on it. It was just a lack of other options that had landed him back here. His best hope was that Tom would be back tomorrow. Or that half of the people in Micah's house wouldn't be puking their guts up anymore. Or that things at Kenny's would get better. Somehow. For Alex to offer more than one more night….

Alex shrugged, looking awkward for a moment. "I've got the room, and bouncing from house to house isn't good for anyone."

Someone should probably tell social services that, Jamie couldn't help but think, but his string of foster homes weren't their fault and he knew it.

"You know me well enough to know that I'm not going to put up with crap, but we've gotten along okay the past couple days, haven't we?" Alex continued.

Jamie nodded slowly. He'd watched himself over the long weekend—he'd learned pretty quick at the station that Alex wouldn't put up with much, and he sure as hell had better sense than to pull anything when there was nowhere to go but out into cold and snow—and he'd never be able to keep out of trouble for more than a few more days, but even a solid place to sleep until next weekend would help. He'd screw up or Alex would get sick of him or both soon enough, but by then Tom would definitely be back and Micah's family would be on the mend and he'd have some other options anyway. "I don't eat too much or anything like that?" he checked. That was one of the biggest complaints. Well, that and messes, but with his bikes and guitar stored, all he had was a duffel and backpack anyway. He could keep his clothes and crap contained for a few more days.

Alex frowned. "Of course not. You eat like a teenage boy. Did someone tell you that it wasn't?"

Jamie returned his focus to the carpet and shrugged. "What are the rules? If I stay here, I mean."

"Well, I can't say that I've thought about it too much, but you know me well enough to know most of what I won't tolerate. Go to school, stay out of trouble, all of the usual stuff. My schedule's not particularly regular, but I expect you in at a reasonable hour; say ten on school nights, eleven on weekends, unless you're working or we talk about it first. I'm generally in by the same. You're welcome to join me for dinner when I'm around, otherwise you can help yourself." He paused. "I mean that, Jamie. There's no reason for you to go hungry. If you eat the last of something, write it on the list on the fridge so I know to pick up more, same as I do, but it's not something that you need to worry about." He paused again for a moment and then continued. "Generally speaking, pick up after yourself, keep the main area of the house reasonable, and try not to let your bedroom turn into a hazard zone. If something else comes up, on either of our parts, we can talk about it. Think you can manage that?"

Jamie nodded again. It was a better offer than he usually got from foster parents. And Alex had yelled at him plenty at the station when he'd messed up one thing or another; that wouldn't be anything new. Alex had never done anything that actually hurt him.

"Oh. You do not smoke," Alex said sternly. "Ever, understood? Leaving aside the fact that it's a nasty habit, you're too young to have cigarettes in the first place."

"I mostly only do that if I'm hungry," Jamie admitted. "It's easier to bum a cigarette than a sandwich." The rest of the time it was when he was shook, and if it came to that he wouldn't be doing it here anyway.

Alex didn't exactly look pleased with the admission, but he didn't comment on it beyond, "Then it shouldn't be an issue." He frowned. "You have more stuff than fits in your backpack, right?"

"My duffel is stashed at school," Jamie said. It wasn't something that anyone would look too close at as long as he didn't leave it there for more than a few nights.

"Do you need to go get it tonight?"

"No, I've got a change of clothes in my backpack." And his usual overnight gear. Alex already knew that he carried that, no sense in bringing it up again.

"Okay. You bring it back with you tomorrow." He pushed himself to his feet. "I'll get you a key."


	9. Alex: Settling In

_Thanks to everyone who read and to_ _frxstguardian_ _for reviewing._

* * *

"Jamie's back on duty on Saturday, right?" Val asked, sticking her head in Alex's office.

"Jamie will be back on Saturday," Alex agreed, his tone not encouraging any more questions. It hadn't just been Hank earlier in the week, Tyler had asked when they'd come on shift this afternoon what had happened to get Jamie suspended. Alex appreciated the loyalty, but none of the teenagers were very good with the concept of 'confidential.' If Jamie hadn't told them himself, he certainly wasn't going to.

She took the hint and said goodnight before moving along, buttoning up her coat as she went. From the wind that whistled past as she stepped outside, it was going to be another ugly night, which reminded him that he needed to dig around in the closet and see if the coat he'd ordered a few years back that had ended up being a size too big was still in the front closet. He was pretty sure that it was since he knew that he hadn't bothered to return it and didn't remember ever donating it anywhere either, and it should be a little more useful for Jamie than the leather jacket that seemed to be the only one he owned.

He looked down at the book in front of him and shook his head, putting a scrap of paper in to mark his place before closing it and sticking it in his laptop bag. He was only halfway through, but it was a sobering read, and he had a feeling that the other two books he'd picked up on the subject weren't going to be much better.

He really hadn't thought about how foster care worked before. Kids who were without their own families for whatever reason got placed with other families and life continued on, what else was there to say? Jamie's description had been concerning, yes, but Jamie was also looking at it from the inside and from the perspective of a teenager. Not precisely unbiased, even if he'd obviously been telling the truth about having nowhere to go. And if the questions from his social worker had been a little worrying as well…well, it wasn't like Alex knew her or had any background for why she'd been asking the questions that she had been. He'd had another conversation with her this morning, though, an even more unnerving one giving some of the things she'd implied, and this time he'd gone down to the library and actually looked into it.

He pushed himself to his feet and shouldered his bag. Calling the book sobering was being polite. Neglect was a given where Jamie was concerned although he wouldn't have thought to put that name on it before. Leaving aside the lack of a place to stay, Jamie had all but admitted to going hungry on occasion and not just when he was between homes. His lack of decent outerwear for the winter weather was another symptom of the same thing. Alex very much hoped that none of the chapters on the various types of abuses applied to Jamie, but the statistics there were downright frightening. Given Jamie's age when he'd entered the system and the number of homes he'd been through, it seemed almost impossible that he'd managed to avoid everything. Some of the more vague comments by Jamie's social worker had hinted in that direction as well, and damned if Alex had the first idea what he was supposed to do about that. Obviously he'd never hit Jamie, but he'd never have done that no matter what anyone had told him.

The wind almost took his breath away when he stepped outside, a temporary distraction, and he hurried to his car. No snow yet, but the way the clouds were rolling in it wouldn't be long in coming.

The light was on in Jamie's room when Alex pulled into the driveway, and he put his coat away and dug out the other one before going to tap on the closed bedroom door. "Jamie? Can I come in?"

"I…sure," Jamie said, hesitation clear in his voice.

Alex frowned. He hadn't seen any dirty dishes or anything like that sitting out in the kitchen when he'd passed by—it had only taken one quick conversation earlier in the week to clarify expectations there—and he didn't have much of anything that could have gotten broken so he wasn't sure what might be wrong. "It's getting bad out there again," he said as he opened the door, "and I thought—what happened to you?!"

Jamie shook his head and refused to meet Alex's eyes, and Alex took the two steps to the bed and reached out a hand. And froze when Jamie flinched back. He didn't want to think that it meant anything, but given what he'd been reading he just didn't know. "Jamie?" he asked quietly.

"It's not…." Jamie shook his head again, sliding a little further down the headboard away from Alex. "Sorry. It's nothing."

"It's a pretty nasty bruise from what I can see," Alex corrected, lowering his arm. Check the injury first; he could worry about Jamie's reaction later. "What happened?"

Jamie shrugged.

"Scoot back over here and let me take a look at you, please."

Jamie didn't look happy, but he didn't object as Alex put the coat down on the bedside table and beckoned him back over. Not that Alex would have put up with objections. Jamie hadn't had a black eye when he'd left for school this morning.

"What happened?"

"I don't know," Jamie said as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed, turning so he was facing Alex directly. Or he would have been if he'd lifted his head, anyway.

"You don't know how you got hit in the face?" Alex asked skeptically, making no attempt to touch him. "If you took that hard a knock, we need to go to the hospital."

"I got in a fight, okay?"

"No, but we'll talk about that in a few minutes. May I take a look at that eye?"

"Whatever."

As reluctant as he seemed, he didn't flinch away this time when Alex reached out, and Alex tilted his chin up gently to get a better look at the bruising. It was swollen, no surprise there, but the skin wasn't broken and there was nothing that wouldn't heal in a week or two. "You iced it?"

"Yeah. Not that I much needed to after being outside in this weather."

That was true enough, Alex supposed. He shifted to the side a little and took a seat on the edge of the bed beside Jamie. "You want to tell me exactly what 'got in a fight' means?"

"Gee, I don't know, what do you think it means?" Jamie muttered.

"I suggest you try that again," Alex said. He wouldn't tolerate that tone, and Jamie knew it.

Jamie's eyes flicked sideways to meet his for an moment and then he flushed and looked away again. "I got punched."

"By who? When?"

"After school. Kenny."

"I thought he was your friend." Not that Alex had seen much evidence of that thus far, and he remembered again what Hank had said.

"He is. I don't know what happened. I mean, he was in a bad mood about _something_ after school, he wouldn't say what, but then Brianne started picking at him about it, and all of a sudden he turned around and shoved her. And not like he was playing, either. She hit the ground pretty hard, and Caitie started yelling at him, and I grabbed him before he could hit her too but then the next thing I knew…." He shook his head and gestured at his face.

"Did you hit him back?"

"Probably would have, but he took off while I was still trying to figure out what happened."

The unmarked state of Jamie's knuckles backed up that assertion, although Alex appreciated the honesty. "Just as well. I assume that none of your teachers were around?"

"Nah, school was long out by then. Brianne and Caitie had had detention so Kenny and I had been hanging out and waiting for them."

Which was probably just as well also. Given that Jamie tended to be in and out of detention himself he wasn't sure that Jamie's teachers would have accepted the explanation.

"Am I in trouble?" Jamie asked quietly.

"Not for getting hit. And you wouldn't have been for defending yourself, either, for the record." He paused. "You will watch your mouth, though, is that understood? You know better than that."

Jamie looked over and then away again. "Sorry."

Alex nodded in acceptance of the apology. He couldn't think of any chores he could give Jamie by way of reprimand off the top of his head anyway. "Okay. Just to make sure, when he hit you you didn't hit your head or anything, right?"

He shook his head. "It just rocked me back some."

Alex nodded. Not good news, but better than Jamie getting his head slammed into anything. "Do you feel okay? Any nausea or blurry vision?"

"Nah, no concussion. I've had them before, I know what they feel like."

Not all concussions were obvious, but given what he'd said about the hit Alex let it go. No doubt it had rattled him, but it didn't look like it had done any serious damage. "You let me know if that changes, all right? Did you have dinner?"

"I wasn't really hungry."

That wasn't normal, and Alex tilted his head. "Are you sure you don't feel sick?"

Jamie shrugged. "Not that kind of not hungry."

"Why don't you come have a sandwich, at least? And I want you to try that coat on." He indicated the one he'd put on the bedside table. "It's too big for me, but I think the sleeves might be long enough for you."

"My jacket's fine," Jamie said, frowning.

"For normal weather I'm sure it is, but for what we've got coming down now?" He gestured towards the windowsill where snow was starting to build up again. "At least give it a try. If it doesn't work it doesn't work." Alex would dig around for another heavy jacket if that was the case.

Jamie hesitated for a minute and then nodded, and Alex pushed himself up off the bed.

"Good. Do you have any homework?"

Jamie looked vaguely horrified. "It's almost Friday."

"I don't think that prevents teachers from assigning homework."


	10. Jamie: Telling Friends

_Thanks to everyone who read. As always, reviews are appreciated._

* * *

"Hey, you're here early," Caitie said, dropping down next to Jamie on the bench and swinging her backpack around to sit on her lap. "Usually you're racing the bell."

"Yeah." The buses were a little slow from Alex's neighborhood, but not as bad as Alex had made it sound. Jamie would probably be okay taking the later one. Well, that or he'd be late to homeroom, but that wouldn't be anything new. He was just glad that someone had opened up the lunchroom for students who got to school early, because there was no way that he wanted to be outside in the snow right now. It'd be even better if the cafeteria was serving breakfast—he'd eaten with Alex so he wasn't actually hungry, but he'd learned to grab food when he could—but they'd stopped that program a couple years ago.

"Found a coat too," she continued. "How did you manage that? I figured that the thrift stores would be bare by now."

"Oh, believe me, they were." At least they had been when he'd checked after school the last couple days, anyway. Jamie wasn't exactly picky about clothes, but when the only coats he could find had no lining or giant holes, even he couldn't pass them off as usable. "This one isn't mine, I'm just borrowing it."

"Well, good timing. I saw on the news last night that it's now officially the coldest December on record."

"And we're all of three days in, great." He hated being cold. The coat was nice, though. And the sleeves were a little too long even for him which meant that Alex had probably been telling the truth about it being something that he'd stuffed in a closet somewhere when it turned out to not fit right. Not that Jamie was very familiar with being able to throw anything in a closet and forget about it, but that was way less awkward than any other option. He still couldn't believe that Alex was being as nice as he was.

"Where's Kenny?" Caitie asked, looking around. "Skipping again?" She didn't wait for an answer. "What is going _on_ with him? I've seen him in a bad mood plenty of times before but he's never lost it like that. Your eye looks gross by the way."

"Great, thanks." Not that she wasn't right. Stupid thing was still throbbing. "I've got no idea what's going on in his head." Sure Kenny had been grumbling some when they'd been waiting for the girls to get out of detention yesterday, but it hadn't been anything out of the ordinary. School sucked, life sucked, everything sucked. Pretty much like normal. He hadn't been very happy when Jamie had said that he'd be passing on the party at the Ivers' place on Saturday, but considering that said party involved hanging out on a rooftop in negative-whatever degree weather, Jamie would have skipped it no matter where he was sleeping. Freezing wasn't his idea of a good time.

"He didn't say anything to you last night?"

"I haven't seen him since it happened. I'm not staying with him right now." Which meant that he had no idea if Kenny was skipping today, but he kind of hoped so. Kenny wasn't the kind of person who apologized, no matter what he'd done, and even if the moment when Jamie might have hit him back was long past he still wasn't sure he'd be happy to see him.

She frowned, twisting to look behind them. "So where are you staying, then? Is Tom or Faustus or someone around here somewhere?"

Them being far less likely to skip school than Kenny was, and it would therefore be reasonable to expect them to be sitting with Jamie if he'd slept at one of their places last night. He hadn't told anyone about being at Alex's house yet, but he hadn't figured he'd be there long enough to need to, either. Especially after yesterday: coming home with a black eye had been the end of the line more than once before. No one liked fighting, and they never seemed to care that Jamie liked it even less than them. Somehow things were still okay, though. His mouth had gotten him into more trouble than the bruise had, and even that had just been a snap. Not exactly anything new for him, especially where Alex was concerned.

"Jamie?" Caitie asked.

"No, it's…I'm staying with Alex," he admitted before she could ask again. It probably was time to let a few people know, just to be safe, and she was a good enough friend that if he didn't tell her she'd dig until he did.

"Alex?" Her forehead creased. "Marks? The redhead who sits behind Micah in History?"

The redhead who sat behind Micah in history was a girl and not in his and Caitie's usual social circle, and he shook his head quickly. "No, Freeman. From the squad."

Confusion was replaced by surprise. "As in the guy who runs the whole program?"

"Yeah."

"How did that happen? He's a foster parent?"

"No way." That was a seriously weird thought. "But I was at the station Thursday, and with the snow coming down there weren't a lot of other options." He shrugged. He wasn't about to bring up the bus stop with her, either. "I sort of got stuck with him when the snow kept falling, and then when he found out about my foster parents, he said that I could stay at his place until Sonja finds somewhere else." Another shrug. "I'll end up back at Kenny's or somewhere eventually, I'm sure, but for now it's going okay."

"Seriously? I mean, isn't he kind of…." She trailed off, waving a hand vaguely.

"Yeah. I mean, he wanted me to do homework last night. Almost on _Friday_." Never mind that he'd actually given in and done a little bit while eating a couple sandwiches, either. It wasn't going to become a habit.

"So is that where you got the coat?"

"Yeah. He said I can hang onto it until the snow stops since he's got another one that fits him better."

"That was nice of him. Does the super squad know? I know Val hasn't said anything."

"I doubt it. I know you're the first person I've told, and Alex mostly never tells anyone anything. Not about other people, anyway." Jamie knew all the rules about confidentiality as far as handling patients and reports and that kind of thing, he'd had to repeat them often enough before getting cleared, but Alex was even stricter than that. "They'll probably figure it out soon enough." Alex would offer Jamie a ride when his time at the station overlapped with the high school squad, Jamie was sure of that, and although the story might have been different if it was the middle of summer, he wasn't stupid enough to decline in this weather.

"Huh. What do you think they'll say?"

"Got me. I don't think any of them even know I'm in foster care. Alex didn't so it's not on whatever forms Sonja filled out to get me on the squad, and it's not like I talk about it much." The other so-called bleacher junkies knew, but that was just because they were the people he generally crashed with when he was between homes. He'd never even thought about asking Hank or Tyler. They were nice guys, sure, especially for jocks, but they weren't that kind of friends.

"What do _you_ think about staying with him? Minus the homework thing."

"I don't know. I mean, there's no lock on the fridge, and he's got an actual spare bedroom for me to use which is nice." She knew all about the converted porch last winter. "We don't always get along so well at the station, though, so mostly I'm trying to stay out of his way." Not exactly easy when Alex expected him to at minimum join him at the table for meals when they were both around, but so far it really was going all right.

She nodded and then Micah was there and Jamie definitely didn't feel like talking about his current living situation with him, especially since he might need Micah's place to crash at at some point in the reasonably-near future. "Is everyone at your place recovered from whatever bug you picked up?" he asked instead.

* * *

"I feel like I'm gargling marbles," Hank said, putting his forehead down on his open book.

"It's not that bad." Hank lifted his head slightly, and Jamie grinned. "It's mostly worse. I've got no clue what you just said but I'm very sure that that it didn't involve anything that you could do on vacation or buy at a supermarket."

"Thanks. It's probably a bad thing that I'm hoping that someone slips on the ice and we get a callout, isn't it?"

Jamie's grin didn't fade. The only reason that he was doing decently in French was because he already spoke it pretty well courtesy of his mom's mom way back when, and he was remembering more and more as the class went on. The written side was still a pain, but it was about the only thing that he was better at than Hank, and trying to do homework together was kind of hilarious.

"Okay, enough of this for a minute," Hank said, lifting his head and pushing his book away. "What did you do to get yourself suspended last week?"

Jamie was kind of surprised that he'd waited this long to ask. "Ran my mouth when I shouldn't have."

"Yeah, well, next time could you not? We've gotten kind of used to having you around."

"Sorry."

Hank frowned suddenly. "Wait, when did you even have time for that? You left at the same time I did, and I know you weren't in trouble then."

"I had to go back for something the next day." Like killing time in a reasonably warm place, and if he'd ended up counting bandages, it wasn't like he'd had anything else to be doing.

"On Thanksgiving?" Hank's frown deepened. "What did you forget that was that important?"

Of course Hank would know the date. Overachiever all the way around. Except in French. "I don't…. It's complicated." Jamie looked down at his book for a minute. Alex wasn't here yet, but he said earlier that he'd be stopping by this afternoon and that Jamie could catch a ride back with him. Maybe that would be after the rest of the squad left, but maybe it wouldn't be, and Jamie would rather avoid having to answer the completely awkward questions in front of Alex.

"What's complicated about forgetting something?" Hank asked.

Jamie looked over his shoulder. Hank was probably the best of the super squad to start with; he was pretty steady and as far as Jamie knew there wasn't any awkwardness going on in his family like there was with Tyler's stepfather. Or Tyler's father, who didn't seem to be in the picture too much right now. Val was his second choice since he could give her the basics and let her bug Caitie for the rest of it, but she and Tyler were over watching TV and pretending like they weren't practically dating and he wasn't about to get in the middle of that.

"Jamie?"

He looked back at Hank. "Okay, here goes. I'm guessing that the answer is no, but did you know that I'm in foster care?"

"What? Doesn't that mean that you don't have any parents? What happened?"

"Well, that answers that question. No, my parents aren't in the picture, they haven't been for a while, and I don't want to talk about it."

"Why not? Did they die?"

Jamie rolled his eyes. "Not as far as I know, but my mom took off around the time I started school, and my dad is in prison. And I don't want to talk about."

"What did he do?"

"Is there some part of 'don't want to talk about it' that's not coming through?"

"Sorry. I just didn't know any of that."

The curiosity was still pretty clear in Hank's eyes, and Jamie sighed. This was why he didn't talk about his personal life when he didn't have to. "Attempted murder, okay? It's not a nice story, _I don't want to talk about it_ , and I've been in foster care ever since."

"What about your grandmother? Doesn't she live somewhere around here?"

"A little bit south, but she's in a nursing home so they aren't going to let her have a kid." He wasn't going to bring up the d-word with Hank. "Can I get to the part of this story that actually matters?" If he didn't cut Hank off he'd come up with twenty more questions. People always did.

"Okay, sure," Hank said slowly, clearly biting back several of those questions. At least he was willing to do that much.

"So the foster parents of the month dumped me right before Thanksgiving. It's not—it happens. It's not a big deal. But I didn't have anywhere else to be so I ended up here, and then I ran into Alex, and neither of us was in a good mood."

"Oh. That would do it." He paused. "Does Alex know you're in foster care?"

"He does now. This is where things get kind of strange. I'm sort of staying with him for a little bit."

Hank blinked. "That's a joke, right? A really bizarre and not very funny joke."

"It should be," Jamie agreed. "But it's pretty much that or Kenny's floor until my social worker finds a new foster home, and Kenny's being weird lately."

"Like giving people black eyes?"

"How did you hear?" It explained why Hank hadn't asked before despite the fact that the bruising was incredibly obvious, but Jamie wasn't sure where Hank would have gotten the information. They didn't have a lot of friends in common.

"Tyler. I guess Caitie told Val who told him."

That almost made sense. "Right. Well, anyway, Alex's place is the better of the two options right now." He shrugged. "I figured that I should tell you myself since you'd figure it out eventually and then things would be even weirder."

Hank nodded. "Makes sense. Appreciate it."

He hesitated, and Jamie eyed him suspiciously. "What?" He did not want to answer any more questions, especially since he still hadn't said anything to Val or Tyler. Maybe he should just have told all three of them at once.

"Try to keep your mouth shut and not get suspended for _life_ , okay?"

"That's pretty much my plan."


	11. Alex: Grounded

_Thanks to everyone who read. As always, reviews are appreciated._

* * *

Alex crossed his arms over his chest and glared. "Answer the question, Jamie. Where have you been?"

Jamie scowled. "With Micah, okay? We lost track of time, and then I had to wait for the next bus since his mom works nights and had the car."

"And there's no phone at his house?"

"What does it even _matter_?"

"It matters because you should have been home almost two hours ago. Or at the very least let me know that you were going to be late." Alex wasn't accustomed to being responsible for another person at all, never mind being responsible for a kid—and no matter what Jamie had to say about it, he was very much in that position as long as Jamie was staying with him—and he hadn't expected the worry he'd felt when Jamie hadn't been anywhere in sight when ten and then eleven o'clock had come and gone. When someone was late to the station he saw it from the position of a supervisor, not a…whatever he was right now.

"I can take care of myself," Jamie snapped.

"No one is saying you can't, but I expect you to keep your word which means being in on time. You've got a watch on your wrist and you're more than smart enough to know how to read it."

Jamie's eyes flashed and he opened his mouth to continue the argument.

"I don't want to hear it. You're grounded for a week."

"That's not fair!"

"Do you want to make it two? Did you or did you not know when you were supposed to be back?"

Jamie dropped his eyes and muttered something that Alex chose to interpret as assent.

"And did I or did I not warn you about being on time the last time you were late?" Granted that the last time had only involved a few minutes and Jamie had had the sense to apologize immediately when Alex had called him on it, but it had been fair warning and this evening had been an unpleasant surprise that Alex had no intention of letting go unanswered.

Jamie shrugged.

"Words."

"I guess. But—"

"No buts. You're grounded. Now, go to bed, it's late and you have school tomorrow. And since I know you aren't working tomorrow evening, you will be home as soon as school is over. Clear?"

Jamie shot him another scowl but jerked his head in a nod and then turned and stomped towards his room.

"Why do I feel the need to call my parents and apologize?" Alex said as Jamie shut the door a little harder than he needed to. Given the way that he'd been raised he'd made up most of his rules himself and he still felt bad.

He wasn't sure how he was going to enforce Jamie's grounding, either. He was reasonably certain that Jamie would cooperate up to a point, but he was a teenager and basically guaranteed to push the limits eventually. Since Alex was almost always at either at the station or the hospital until well after the high school got out for the day, he'd have no way of knowing if Jamie came straight home or not. Not to mention that if Jamie did decide to disobey, what was he supposed to do about it? Ground him for longer? Find extra chores for him to do? Alex didn't even have a list of regular chores to give him to start with.

A yawn caught him, and he shook his head. He'd done enough worrying tonight; he'd deal with logistics tomorrow. Or maybe Saturday. Hopefully Jamie would have enough sense not to try him on the first day.

* * *

"Do you want the last of mine?" Alex asked, indicating the few pieces of bacon remaining on his plate.

Jamie hesitated. "You're not going to eat them?"

"All yours. I figured we could finish off the package this morning, but there was more left than I realized." Jamie didn't wait for another invitation, and Alex pushed himself to his feet as he finished picking up his empty plate and holding out a hand for Jamie's. "Go get your coat. We'll get the grocery shopping out of the way first."

"Do I have to go?"

"Yes." Alex couldn't say for sure that Jamie had come straight home from school yesterday since he'd had a meeting with a couple members of the city council and hadn't made it home himself until after seven, but he'd at least been in his room by the time that Alex had tapped on his door. It was a start.

Of course, Alex still hadn't been able to come up with a whole lot in the way of chores or anything like that to keep him occupied. He wasn't in the habit of allowing his house to become particularly messy, and it wasn't so large that even a deep clean would take more than an afternoon anyway. Shoveling the driveway might have been something, but the service Alex contracted with for yard work had cleared it after the last major snowfall and the amount that had fallen since wasn't worth worrying about.

He'd finally settled on taking Jamie grocery shopping with him today and then getting him to help him bring some boxes down from the crawlspace above the garage and sort through whatever was in them. He'd put them up there right after he'd moved in and realistically there probably wasn't anything in them that he wanted to keep, but he might as well get the lot of it cleared out while he had an extra set of hands. Tomorrow they could do that deep clean.

The grocery store he liked was reasonably close, and he tore his list in half as they entered and gave half of it to Jamie. "You get this stuff, and then pick three or four meals you like in the frozen aisle and a couple cans of soup." Alex tried to cook at home when he had the time, it was better for both his waist and his wallet, and Jamie was perfectly capable of reheating whatever leftovers were available—that or he just ate sandwiches or cereal—but a few quick hot meals were always good to have on hand.

"Frozen peas?" He made a face.

"You liked them just fine in the stir fry yesterday." And Alex refused to shell that many peas himself. "Most everything you're looking for will be over on that side of the store," he said with a quick wave of his arm. "Meet me in produce when you're done." He'd deal with the other half of the list himself, and that would put them right next to the checkout stands. In and out fast was always his goal with shopping, and having Jamie here would actually help with that.

"Got it."

It was early enough that the store wasn't as crowded as it could have been, although the Christmas decorations were out in full. Alex had to navigate around a ridiculously-sized blow-up reindeer just to enter the dairy aisle, and while that was probably better than having it sitting in front of the meat, he had no idea why it was there at all. Surely people had better places to buy their decorations than at the grocery store.

He had everything on his list within half an hour, and when he made his way back to produce he found Jamie already there. His head was down and he was sniffling, though, and Alex frowned as he approached. "Jamie? Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." He sounded stuffy, and when he looked Alex saw that his eyes were red-rimmed.

"Jaim?"

"It's nothing. Really." He swiped at his eyes. "The girl in the elf costume over by the holiday aisle decided that I looked like I needed 'Christmas spirit' and sprayed me full on with peppermint-gingerbread-evergreen-whatever crap before I could get away." He sneezed. "Stupid allergies."

"They shouldn't be spraying anyone with anything without permission," Alex said with a frown in that direction. Jamie wasn't the only person whose allergies wouldn't be able to deal with nonsense like that. Sprayed fragrances were even worse than those damn scented candles, at least right up until the damn scented candles set a tree on fire. "Why don't you go blow your nose and splash some water on your face while I pay? The restrooms are up front by customer service."

Jamie sneezed again and then nodded. "Yeah. Thanks. I hate Christmas."

It only took Alex a minute to transfer the stuff in Jamie's cart to his and pass the now-empty cart off to another shopper, but by the time he picked out the vegetables that he wanted and made it to the registers Jamie was there and looking better. Still sniffling a little, but he didn't hesitate to start grabbing bags, and Alex nodded in thanks. Not only had shopping gone faster with two of them, with two sets of hands there was no need to maneuver the shopping cart through the rapidly crowding lot either. He made a mental note to bring Jamie with him next week too even if Jamie stayed out of trouble.

It didn't take long to get the groceries put away when they got home, and then Alex waved for Jamie to join him in the garage, explaining what he wanted him to do. Jamie nodded agreeably enough and scrambled up the trapdoor ladder as soon as it was down. "Looks like there's half a dozen or so."

More than Alex remembered putting up there, but it had been several years ago. "Just start bringing them down and we'll open them inside." It was warmer there. "And be careful," he warned. "If anything seems too heavy, leave it where it is." He didn't think there was anything that would be, but Jamie didn't carry the same kind of muscle that Tyler or Hank did.

"Okay."

Once Jamie had them down at the garage level Alex's back was cooperating well enough to let him carry them into the house, and he began taking them into the living room and stacking them on the coffee table as Jamie went up for the next. He came back into the garage after the fifth box and found Jamie already back on the concrete with another in his hands.

"This one's not bad. And I think there's just one more up there."

"All right. I'll take this inside; you get the last and close things up?"

"Sure. Want me to put the car back in the garage too?"

"Please." Alex had left it out there after grocery shopping in preparation for this particular chore, and he tucked the latest box under one arm and dug the keys out of his pocket, tossing them over.

When he got inside, he took a seat on the couch and broke the latest box open. This one seemed to support his beliefs that he wasn't going to find anything useful, it all looked like stuff from when he was in school. Not med school, either, half-empty binders from high school and even earlier. He'd never understood why his mother had kept this sort of thing never mind sent them to him; it would have saved everyone time if they'd gone immediately into the dustbin. He'd flipped through the first binder out of idle curiosity and was putting it back in the box when he realized that he hadn't heard Jamie come back in. He pushed himself to his feet with a frown. "Jamie?"

A glance down the hall told him that Jamie wasn't in his room or the bathroom, and Alex walked through the library and towards the garage. He hadn't heard any crashes or anything like that, but he also couldn't recall hearing the car pull back in, either. He couldn't imagine that Jamie would have driven away, but where he might be…maybe he'd found more boxes? Alex couldn't say that he'd done much investigation in the crawl space when he'd moved in so it was possible that there were some from a previous owner up there.

"Jamie did you—" He broke off immediately as he stepped into the garage and found Jamie with one hand braced against the wall, his eyes squeezed shut and his breath coming in short gasps. "What's wrong?"

"A-a-asthma," he gasped. "Caught—caught a—fa-face full—of dust and—and it—"

"Got it," Alex interrupted. "Don't try to talk. Is your inhaler in your room?"

Jamie shook his head quickly. "Used up the last d-dose ea-earl—back in—fall. Just gotta ca-calm down. It'll pa-pass."

It probably would but that was nowhere near a hundred percent certain, and Alex shook his head. "Stop trying to talk. Yes or no, are you allergic to any medications?"

Jamie shook his head.

"Okay. Focus on your breathing. I'll be right back." He didn't collect sample medications at the same rate as most of the other doctors he knew did, probably because he wasn't full time at a practice or the hospital, but he still had several tubs full in his closet and he was almost certain that there were a few rescue inhalers in the lot. It only took a moment to find one of them, and when he returned with it to the garage—it and his phone because if the attack got much worse he'd be calling for an ambulance—he found Jamie still gasping. "Do you know—"

He didn't even need to finish the question as Jamie snatched the inhaler from his hand as soon as he held it out, shaking it to arm it and then biting down on the mouthpiece and depressing the trigger.

"All right, one more," Alex prompted when Jamie lowered it.

"Don't want to—to waste—doses," Jamie said. "It'll—pass."

"It's not a waste, it's the appropriate amount of medication. Take one more," Alex ordered. "If you need another inhaler, you come talk to me and I will get you one. If you _ever_ need another inhaler, you come talk to me."

Jamie did as he said, and a few long minutes later his breathing finally evened out. "I hate it when that happens."

"I can understand that. You said that you breathed in some dust?"

"Yeah, when I shut the trapdoor a whole cloud of it sort of…fell." He waved a hand at the garage floor, but it wasn't so clean that a little more dust stood out in any way. "I was in the way and took a breath at the wrong time." He shrugged. "Usually it's just allergies that kick it off, but I guess this time the dust was enough."

Especially if he'd been primed by whatever he'd been sprayed with at the grocery store earlier, Alex imagined, and he made a mental note to talk to the manager of the store the next time he was there because incidents like this were exactly why you didn't spray that crap at people without their consent. "Okay. If you're feeling a little better, why don't you give me the keys and you can go lie down on the couch for a little bit?"

"I'm fine," Jamie said.

"Breathing isn't something that you play around with. Go on and I'll be there in a few minutes. And keep that inhaler with you." It wasn't uncommon for one asthma attack to flare into another even if it looked like it had passed entirely.

Jamie nodded and handed the keys to Alex, picking up the last box before Alex could object and heading into the house.

Alex pulled the car in and then bypassed the living room and grabbed his bag before joining Jamie on the couch.

"What's that for?" Jamie asked suspiciously.

"I want to get you checked out a little better." He didn't remember asthma being listed on any of the forms that Jamie had filled out when he'd joined the squad, but it was entirely possible that he'd read right past it. "You said that that only happens once in a while?"

"Yeah. It happened more when I was younger, but now it's just a couple times a year at most. And usually it stops on its own after a few minutes."

Jamie shouldn't be waiting for it to stop on its before reaching for an inhaler, but Alex let that go for the time being. "Have you ever taken any medication for it besides using rescue inhalers?"

"No."

"Okay." Alex dug a penlight out of his bag. "Slide over here and let me take a look at your throat." Jamie made a face but did as he said, and Alex was relieved to find that while it looked a little inflamed, it was nothing out of the ordinary for someone who'd just had an asthma attack. He put the penlight away and grabbed his stethoscope. "When was the last time you actually saw a doctor?"

"I don't know. Maybe when I was twelve or thirteen?"

"You've had one inhaler for three years?" That at least agreed with Jamie's assessment that it was very mild asthma, but the medication in whatever inhaler he'd had would have expired well before then.

A quick shrug. "Not exactly. The last doctor I went to gave my foster parents five or six different ones, I think they might have been free samples or something, and I took them all with me when I left and used them up one by one."

They'd still have expired, but especially if they hadn't been opened until necessary, rescue inhalers tended to retain at least some potency. "Why didn't you get new ones? Or at least a new one when the last one was used up?" he asked.

"I tried, but the doctors at the free clinic wouldn't even talk to me without a parent or guardian there."

"Why wasn't one of your foster parents with you?"

Jamie scoffed. "No one was going to take time off work to take me to a clinic, especially since I wasn't gasping for air when I asked." Alex felt his jaw tighten at that, and Jamie must have seen it because he slid a little further back on the couch shaking his head. "It's not a big deal, really. It usually passes pretty quick even without an inhaler."

"Your foster parents should have taken you to a doctor before there was any chance you'd need a new one," he said firmly. "Take your shirt off for a minute, please."

"What? Why? I'm fine."

He indicated the stethoscope. "Because I want to listen to your lungs."

Jamie shook his head and pulled back a little more.

"It'll just take a minute."

"Do I have to take my shirt off?"

"Well, it makes things easier," Alex said, not sure why that would matter. As far as he knew Jamie used the locker rooms at the station the same as the other kids did. "Is there a reason that would be a problem?"

"I just don't want to," he said, looking away.

Alex remembered again those chapters on abuse and wondered if this had anything to do with it. The odds of him getting an answer were basically nonexistant, though, so he simply nodded. "All right, we'll try with it on, then. Scoot back over here and turn."

Jamie looked a little surprised but finally did as he asked.

Fortunately his shirt wasn't particularly thick, and Alex pressed his stethoscope against Jamie's chest. "Deep breath. And again." Not quite as deep as he would have liked, but no more unreasonable than the redness in his throat had been, and he repeated the check with his stethoscope against Jamie's back and got the same results before putting the stethoscope away. "All right. I think you'll be fine, but you keep that inhaler I gave you with you. And if you have another attack, you tell me. Okay?"

"Okay," Jamie agreed quietly.


	12. Jamie: Starting to Talk

_Thanks to everyone who read and to a guest for reviewing._

* * *

Alex sighed and returned whatever he'd been looking to the box in front of him, flipping the lid shut before he turned to look back at Jamie. "Are you getting hungry? I think I'm going to heat up some soup for lunch before I go through any more of these."

Jamie wished that he'd thought to pretend to be asleep or something—that had been why he'd stretched out on the couch in the first place, after all—but too late now. He settled for a shrug and a shake of his head. "I'm okay."

As soon as the words were out of his mouth he knew they'd been the wrong thing to say since he pretty much never turned down food, and Alex frowned and then pushed himself up from the floor with a wince, turning to sit on the coffee table facing Jamie. "Are you still breathing okay? Feeling sick at all?"

Jamie shrugged and then shook his head. Being sick would have been a good excuse too, except for the part where Alex was a doctor and would probably want to poke at him again.

"Words, Jamie. Mind reading is not one of my skills."

"No, it's...I"m fine."

He tilted his head. "Are you upset about earlier?"

Jamie shrugged again. "I don't know." Which was complete BS, and Alex would have to be an idiot not to know that it was complete BS, but it wasn't like he could come out and say 'yes.'

Things had been going pretty good up until half an hour or so ago, too. It still seemed really, really bizarre to him since he'd been here for two weeks and Alex still hadn't shown any sign of being ready to kick him out, but his room was warm, he was allowed to eat as much food as he wanted to the point that he didn't even need to save the applesauce cups from lunches at school, and yeah, Alex could be strict about stuff, but it was manageable. It wasn't much different than dealing with him at the station, really. Alex also sat at the table when he was eating, vacuumed on Tuesdays, did laundry on Thursdays, all of that, so it wasn't like the rules were Jamie-specific.

Alex didn't like being crossed, and Jamie had figured that he was in trouble when he'd lost track of time and come in late the other night, but even then all Alex had done was yell and ground him so it wasn't so bad. A little bit of overkill since he'd gotten back fine _eventually_ , but he was used to that kind of thing.

The chores today had been reasonable too. Jamie would have helped with grocery shopping and getting boxes down out of the attic and whatever even if he hadn't been in trouble. He owed Alex at least that much for letting him stay here. Sure, the lunatic with the spritzer bottle hadn't made him happy, but that wasn't Alex's fault. Alex hadn't liked what she'd done either. And the dust and his stupid asthma that wouldn't up and vanish wasn't anyone's fault.

He touched the inhaler in his pocket. He hadn't even thought about asking Alex when his last one had run out, which was pretty stupid now that he thought about it. While Alex had made it clear that even if IV bags and crackers and juice boxes were fair game to take from the station when they'd reached their expiration dates, any kind of medication was out of the question, he'd also made allowances for allergy cream and antiseptic gel and that kind of thing before as long as it was cleared with him first. He'd have said okay to an inhaler.

Except then after Jamie's asthma attack Alex had wanted to do an actual medical check. It made sense, and Jamie wouldn't have cared except...

His fingers tightened a little on the inhaler. In the end Alex hadn't made him take his shirt off, which was at least something, but he wasn't stupid enough to believe that Jamie had refused without reason. When it came to foster parents Jamie knew they got a file, even if he didn't like it, so he already knew they knew the bad stuff. Alex wasn't exactly that, though, and he had no idea what Sonja might have told him. Or not told him. Or what he was supposed to say now.

Alex sighed, bringing him back to the present. "Look, Jaim, it's your body. You get to decide what happens. As long as you're a minor there's a 'within reason' attached to that and a few things you're going to get overruled on—you weren't going to get away without letting me do at least a basic exam—but outside of that it's your call. I can't say I'm not curious, but I won't ask for something like that again unless it's absolutely necessary. And you don't have to tell me if you don't want to. Okay?"

Jamie risked a quick look, but Alex seemed serious enough, and he still didn't say things that he didn't mean. Maybe they could just pretend it hadn't happened.

"Come on," Alex said, pushing himself up and gesturing for Jamie to stand as well. "Come have some lunch."

Jamie nodded slowly and pushed himself up from the couch.

"Cut us a couple pieces of bread, please," Alex said as he opened the can cabinet. "Do you want chicken and dumplings, beef stew, or vegetable?"

"Dumplings," Jamie said immediately, taking the loaf of bread from the fridge. Not that he'd have argued with one of the others, but even if the dumplings themselves had no nutritional value like Alex insisted, he still liked them the best. When the bread and bowls were on the table he grabbed the glasses too. "Water?" It wasn't exactly a shot in the dark since that was about the only thing that Alex drank besides coffee...Jamie still thought it was a little weird to be in a house that didn't even have coke in the fridge, but there were worse things.

"Yes, please."

Jamie nodded and put the drinks with the rest of it before taking his seat and waiting for Alex to bring the soup over. It didn't take long, even when he was heating it up on the stove, and Alex poured a bowlful for himself and then handed the ladle to Jamie.

"What's in all those boxes, anyway?" Jamie asked after a few minutes of near-silent eating. He didn't have to talk while they ate, they'd had plenty of meals in total silence, but the quiet had started to feel awkward to him. Once in a while Alex talked, mostly questions about school or homework or comments about work or the station, but the lack of noise seemed to bother him less than it did Jamie.

"Some things my mother sent me after I moved out here," Alex said. "Don't ask me why, most of it's from back when I was in middle and high school and I didn't want it then, but she always hung onto that kind of thing. I suspect it's going to be a lost cause, but I'd feel bad just throwing everything away without at least flipping through it."

He must have looked curious—which, he was, but he'd never in a million years have said so—because Alex nodded to the stack of boxes.

"You're welcome to look too, if you want. I'm sure there's something worth a laugh in there. You've got your inhaler?"

Jamie wasn't sure where he could have lost it since he'd only been on the couch and then in the kitchen since the attack earlier, but smarting back at Alex got him _looks_ so he just pulled it out of his pocket and held it up.

"Good. There's quite a bit of dust mixed in with everything." He scraped his bowl clean with a piece of bread and then nodded to the soup pot. "Are you going to want another helping?"

"Not right now," Jamie said, echoing his action. "Maybe later." Almost certainly later depending on when they had dinner, but being allowed to raid the fridge whenever he wanted had definite advantages.

"All right. Rinse the dishes, please."

Rinsing dirty dishes and putting them in the dishwasher immediately after eating was one of Alex's rules, and the dishwasher was full enough that Jamie started it when he was done while Alex was finishing putting the leftovers away. "Where did you move here from, anyway?" he asked curiously. Every once in a while Alex would say something that sounded a little off to Jamie's ears, but it wasn't anything like an accent that he could place.

"Wyoming."

Jamie looked over at him in surprise, and he smiled.

"I'm serious."

"Isn't that all cow farms and whatever?"

"They generally call them cattle ranches, but outside of a couple cities, yes. Although my family mostly raises goats."

"Goats? Like, things that go 'baa'?"

"That's more a sheep thing, but you've got the general idea."

Jamie tried to imagine Alex on a farm and totally failed. Not that he'd ever been to a farm himself so he didn't have a lot to work from, but he still thought it was weird when Alex wore jeans on the weekends when he wasn't going into the station. Him standing next to a cow or goat or whatever...no. "I can't really see that," he admitted.

"Believe me, that makes two of us, and that's despite the fact that one of my mother's hobbies is photography," Alex said dryly. "In fact most of my family would agree that I was switched at birth, except for the part where we lived in the middle of nowhere and there was no one to be switched with." He nodded towards the couch. "Go have a seat and break another open and I'll be there in a minute. I need to see if the minutes from last night's meeting have come in yet."

Since Alex was encouraging it, Jamie headed for the couch and cut the tape on the next box. And then sneezed at the cloud of dust that came up when he opened it. Maybe making sure that he had the inhaler with him wasn't the worst idea after earlier. It looked like the box was full of binders, and he pulled the first one out and flipped it open.

"Jamie? Can you come in here for a minute?" Alex called before he'd done more than glance at the first page.

"Yeah, sure." Alex's room wasn't exactly off limits although Jamie didn't go in there unless invited, and he wasn't surprised to find Alex sitting in front of the laptop open on the desk. "What's up? Did you get what you needed?"

"Received and forwarded to Jennifer like she asked, but it looks like I've got an email from your social worker, too."

"Oh." Jamie hadn't figured that Sonja had a prayer in hell of finding a new placement for him before the holidays, but maybe a spot had opened up in a group home or something like that. "Where am I going?" It wouldn't take him too long to pack, at least; Alex had said that he could use the dresser and closet and everything, but he was used to living out of his duffel and hadn't bothered with either. Among other things it kept said duffel from getting lost and him being stuck with trash bags again.

"Nowhere anytime soon from the look of things," Alex said. "I think you're probably going to be here through the holidays."

"Oh," Jamie repeated. Right, _he'd_ assumed that much, but obviously no one had thought to tell Alex before this. "I don't—I mean, I can find somewhere else if—"

"Jamie, I said it was fine if you stayed here until she found another placement, and I meant it," Alex interrupted. "But personally I don't celebrate Christmas so if there's something you want to do, you're going to have to tell me. And there's some form here she wants you to fill out. Angel Trees?"

Oh. That. Jamie scoffed. "No point, and I hate Christmas so I'm pretty fine doing absolutely nothing." One of the reasons he wasn't totally one-hundred percent against being grounded, even if he still thought it was unfair, was because unlike most of his friends' houses Alex's place was mercifully free of pine needles and candy canes and Mannheim Steamroller. Well, Catie's was too, obviously, but hers always had people everywhere even without Hanukkah about to start and with it he was even more in the way.

"No point?" Alex asked.

"You ever looked at an Angel Tree?"

"I'm not even sure what they are," Alex admitted.

That kind of made sense for someone who didn't celebrate Christmas, and Jamie sketched one vaguely in the air. "They're these stupid fake things that get set up in supermarkets and malls and places like that around the holidays. Foster kids—foster kids and some other kids whose parents don't have money for presents, I think—fill out forms for what they'd like, that gets printed on ornaments, and then the idea is that people who are already out shopping pick an ornament and buy something and donate it so kids who wouldn't otherwise gets a present."

"Well, that sounds like a decent thing to do," Alex said. "What's the problem?"

"Nothing if you're young enough. People like buying stuffed animals and balls and wind-up cars and whatever. Once you're old enough to start asking for things you actually need like new shoes or a decent jacket or something like that, though? Forget it. And once you're a teenager, _definitely_ forget it. Take a look at the trees on the final donation days and just about every ornament left will be for a kid ten and up. Well, that or a baby who's parents were stupid enough to ask for something practical like diapers. Maybe a couple ten year olds will get picked up, maybe the baby will, but the ornaments for teenagers? It's not even worth the taking the time to fill out the form. And Sonja knows it, even if she has to send it out."

"Are you sure?" Alex asked. "It couldn't hurt to write something down. Maybe you'll be surprised."

Jamie shook his head. His clothes were holding together okay, and since Alex was letting him use his coat, the only things he could really use were gas cards. Why even if he'd realized how late it was getting on Thursday he still would have finished up the job at the shop since that was about the only way he had to get gas money. There was no chance that anyone would ever buy him those. "The one year I got anything was the first year I was in foster care," he said. "A baseball. And never mind that my arm was broken in like three places at the time and I don't even _like_ baseball. There's really no point."

"All right, if you're sure," Alex said with a frown. "But if you think of something you want to do for Christmas, you let me know. Got it?"

"I'm good."

Alex seemed to accept that, pushing himself to his feet and flipping the laptop shut. "Then let's go see what my mother sent me."

"I think this one is from art class," Jamie said, dropping back down on the couch and indicating the first binder he'd opened. "Is that supposed to be a skull?" He turned the binder sideways, frowning at the image on the first page, but skull was still the best he could come up with. Not that that was saying much. He flipped a little further. "And if that's supposed to be a person, they've got three arms."

Alex shook his head and put the rest of the binders from that box on the coffee table before taking the one out of Jamie's hands and tossing it back in. "Trash. My art career lasted even less time than my music career, and that's despite the fact that I think my brother fed my recorder to the goats."

"All recorders should be fed to goats." They weren't even musical instruments, they were plastic torture devices in the form of whistles. He and Faustus had 'accidentally' thrown Faustus' little sister's off the roof last summer just to make the bad noise stop.

"Can't argue with you there," Alex said, and then looked over at Jamie. "Don't you play the guitar?"

"Sometimes," he admitted after a minute. He wasn't sure how Alex knew that, except that a lack of guitar picks had led to him being stupid and getting sentenced to community service at the station in the first place. Maybe it had been on a form somewhere, although why that would come up and not the fact that he was in foster care he had no idea.

"I don't remember seeing one with your things."

"It's with my bikes." Not that a freezing cold storage shed was a great place to keep a guitar, but he hadn't had a lot of choice at the time. "My last foster parents didn't like it and I didn't want them to..." He trailed off with a shrug, looking away. Good guitars— _any_ guitars—weren't the kind of thing you found at the thrift shop very often and he hadn't wanted to risk them taking it from him. Technically they weren't allowed to do that, at least not permanently, but if it had disappeared while he was at school it wasn't like he'd have been able to do anything about it. He'd lost other things like that.

"You could bring it here," Alex said. "I wouldn't mind. You can't possibly be worse than I was on a recorder."

Jamie shrugged again and opened the next binder, and to his relief Alex he heard Alex doing the same. "Ick. Math."

"Math is not 'ick,' it's important for your future."

"Uh-huh." Alex had been good at it, from the look of things, which just about figured. "Oh, hey. Pictures." The old Polaroid kind, and he pulled them out of the back flap of the binder. One of three children in a row, one of the oldest boy in the first picture alone, and then one of someone's foot that had to be a mistake. "Is that you?" he asked, pointing at the picture of the single boy. The hair and eye color looked just about right, although the features were thinner than Alex's. Then again, Jamie didn't figure the kid in the picture was any older than he was so he may have just grown into them.

Alex leaned over. "No, that would be my older brother." He indicated the picture with three children in it. "The one on the right is me, then that's Pete again on the left, and Cathy is our little sister."

"You all look alike." And Alex—even a mini-Alex—in overalls was even weirder than him in jeans, not that Jamie was going to say that out loud.

"That would be the other reason that the switched at birth theory doesn't work out," Alex said. "And never mind that Pete and Cathy both got married right out of high school and are very happy raising another generation in middle of nowhere Wyoming with no idea why I wanted to go away for school at all, never mind go to medical school."

"Your brother's name is Peter?" Jamie had to ask.

"Yeah. Peter, Alexander, and Catherine and I'm just very glad that my parents never got around to changing their—our—last names like they kept threatening to. We got enough 'Great' jokes anytime all three of us were together as it was."

Jamie snickered despite himself. "Sorry."

"It's fine. At least Pete, Alex, and Cathy are all perfectly reasonable nicknames."

"Peter's my brother's name too," Jamie admitted. "Although I don't think anyone has ever called him Pete in his life."

"Huh. Small world." Alex set the two pictures with people in them aside and tossed the one of the foot in with the binders and then looked over at Jamie with a frown. "Is your name Jamie or James? I could have sworn that one of your forms said James, but then I've never seen it since. Or heard you use it."

"I don't like James." Sonja must have put it on something because he sure as hell never would have. So far Alex had stuck to Jamie even when he was in trouble—well, that or Jaim which was a little quicker but fine too—and he'd just as soon it stayed that way.

"Okay," Alex said.

Jamie opened the next binder and made a face. "More math." There weren't even any interesting pictures in this one, either.

Alex must not have found anything useful in his last binder either, because it went back into the second box with the rest and he moved on to the third box. Jamie took the fourth—less math, more science, not really any better—but he couldn't help looking over when Alex pulled out a couple more pictures.

"And there are the goats."

"What do you even do with goats?" Jamie asked, leaning over to look at the pictures. "I mean, you can't ride them or anything, right?" Alex was in one of the pictures here too, this time with what had to be a baby goat in his arms, and while it was cute, it didn't look any bigger than a small dog.

"Well, I can't say I didn't try a few times when I was little," Alex said. "Mostly my brother's fault, for the record. But no, they're way too small for that." He shook hid head. "It's sort of a cross between having sheep and cattle. Like cattle you can get meat, milk, all of that. Butter is near impossible, but I'm guessing you've seen goat cheese or goat's milk soap at the store before."

"I didn't realize that stuff came from actual goats. I thought it was just a name, like buffalo wings."

"Surprise. And then you can get fiber from them too, like sheep, although trying to get ours sheared was always a fight and a half. Anyway, they're cheaper than most other animals, can eat quite a bit that other animals can't, and they're a little easier to handle even if they are demons about breaking out of any pen you put them in. Most of the people in town thought my parents and their friends were crazy when they were first starting out, but it worked out okay." He put the goat pictures with the others that Jamie had found.

The last two boxes didn't yield anything useful, and Alex stacked them with the rest with a sigh. "More work than half a dozen pictures really deserved, but at least it's done. Thank you for your help."

"Want me to take the boxes out to the trash? Or I could just keep your math notebooks," Jamie said. Although that would really only be useful if they were still using the same book and homework assignments as Alex had been in way-back-whenever Wyoming so probably not much use in the end.

"If you need help with your homework, you come talk to me," Alex said. "You don't copy it. Are you still breathing okay?"

"Yeah."

"Then yes, please."

Alex was gone by the time Jamie got them all out, probably back to his room, and he went and heated up another bowl of soup. It'd be at least a couple more hours before it was time for dinner.


	13. Alex: Holiday Plans

_Thanks to everyone who read. As always reviews are appreciated._

* * *

"Shut—shut up. Shut. Up."

Jamie snickered, backing away from the ambulance. And Hank, who was jabbing a finger at him.

"It was not that funny."

"I don't know, I'm kind of with Jamie on this one," Tyler said, grinning as he leaned against the hood of the ambulance. "I mean—"

"You too," Hank said, swiveling towards him. "Shut up."

"Is there a problem here?" Alex asked.

"No!"

Hank practically fled, and Tyler and Jamie exchanged glances and then started laughing.

"Someone care to fill me in on the joke?" Alex asked.

"Nothing bad. Honest," Jamie said. "The last call out was for a girl who hit the gas instead of the brake pulling into her driveway and bounced her car off the door of the garage. She got a nasty cut on her forehead and her little sister freaked out and called 911."

"And that's funny?"

"No, but the fact that she kept hitting on Hank when he was trying to check her forehead was." Tyler shook his head. "The whole time he's trying to get the butterfly bandage on she's trying to get his phone number."

"Concussion?" Alex checked. That kind of distraction wasn't unreasonable, and they should both know that.

"Probably not," Tyler said with a shake of his head. "I mean, if her mom hadn't shown up as we were finishing we'd have taken her to the emergency room no matter what since she was only our age, but she was tracking fine, nothing wrong with her pupils all of that."

"Seriously, the airbags didn't even go off," Jamie agreed. "And she was wearing a bunch of rings so I'm pretty sure she just cut her forehead on one of those when she got thrown forward. Her sister didn't even have a bruise from the seat belt, although it sounded like her mom was going to take them both to urgent care just to be safe."

"All right." That was about the best outcome that could have happened, all things considered. Minors who got transported to the hospital when they didn't need to be had been the cause of more than a few angry calls to the station from parents, especially when the bills came in, but if a responsible adult wasn't on site the EMTs didn't have much of a choice. "Reports, and keep the teasing to a reasonable level, please."

Tyler nodded; Jamie rolled his eyes but nodded as well when Alex raised an eyebrow.

Alex finished his spot check, signed and initialed the appropriate set of forms, and headed back inside, only to halt at the sound of laughter and protests. Hank and Jamie were on the floor when he reached the team room, Hank with Jamie in a headlock and Jamie being the source of the protests, and Tyler was on the couch laughing.

"Gentlemen?" he asked as he stepped into the room.

"He started it," Hank said, although he didn't actually seem upset.

"Did not." Jamie twisted in Hank's grip, but he didn't have the muscle to break the hold and it was pretty obvious that he knew it.

"Well, I'm ending it. Reports." Jamie almost certainly had started it, or at least hadn't stopped the teasing when he should have, but while Alex didn't mind joking around, he wasn't going to allow actual wrestling in the station.

Hank released Jamie and got to his feet, and Jamie accepted the hand he offered to pull Jamie to his feet.

"Hank, I've got your last day before Christmas as the twenty-third and then you pick up again on the twenty-eighth," Alex said before any of them could leave the room. "Tyler, you've got the twenty-eighth as well, but you're out after the twenty-second. Do both of those sound right?

"Mine does," Hank agreed. "Dad's on call at the hospital so we can't leave for Nana's until Christmas Eve anyway."

Tyler shrugged and looked away. "I might be around for the twenty-third too, if Val or Jamie can't make it. My dad...I guess there's some stuff going on and he might be busy."

"Okay, if anyone is changing shifts just let me know," Alex said after a moment. There wasn't much else he could say. He'd only met Tyler's father once, but he was aware that the man traveled a lot for work and hadn't been in town very much since divorcing Tyler's mother. Alex and everyone else had heard all about Tyler flying out and spending Christmas with him this year wherever he was, though, and if that didn't end up happening it was going to be rough on Tyler.

Hank and Jamie clearly knew that as well as they dropped down on the couch on either side of Tyler.

"Jamie, come talk to me when you're done with your shift and we'll go over days then." If he was willing Alex was going to put him on for at least one extra shift, but now wasn't the time to talk about that. And since Val wasn't working today, he'd have to check with her and Brooke on Tuesday. Given their father's health, he doubted that they'd be doing any traveling, but he wanted to confirm.

"Got it," Jamie agreed.

He nodded and headed back for his office and as usual managed to bury himself in paperwork until a light tap on the door got his attention. "Hey. Are you guys done with your shift?"

Jamie nodded. "Yeah, Hank and Tyler just headed out."

"All right, give me a few minutes to finish up here and then we'll go." He gestured towards the small couch, and Jamie flopped down without waiting for a second invitation. Alex had been a little worried about how the others on the squad would handle Jamie staying with him, but so far it appeared to be a non-issue. He knew that Jamie had told them at least the basics of what was happening, he'd caught the tail end of an interrogation from Brooke and Val and Tyler about foster care that had only ended when Jamie had thrown up his hands and told them all to 'go Google it,' but as far as he knew that had been the end of things. "Did you guys get your reports done?" he checked.

"Yes."

"And you managed to avoid harassing Hank further?"

The 'yes' following that question was accompanied by another eye roll, which was more than enough for Alex.

"Try again," he ordered.

Jamie straightened a little. "Sorry. Yes."

Alex nodded. Jamie knew better than that, even if did he sometimes have to be reminded. "Much better, thank you. On a different subject, is Tyler okay?"

"I don't know. Kind of messed up, I think. His dad called the other day and told him that he might have to call off their Christmas trip. You know, the one Tyler's been talking about for the last month? I guess there's some big business meeting or conference or whatever that he has to go to."

"I heard," Alex admitted.

"His mom and his stepdad are supposedly planning something else just in case, but mostly he doesn't want to talk about it. At least to me; he might have said more to Hank or Val."

And again there was nothing that Alex could say that would do a damn bit of good. It was just a bad situation all around. He sighed. "All right. Are you still sure that there's nothing that _you_ want to do for Christmas?" He'd replied to Jamie's social worker's email with Jamie's response to the Angel Tree form, and her response had been reluctant agreement that the situation would probably play out exactly as Jamie had said even if he did ask for something. It didn't make Alex feel particularly good—he'd be willing to get something for Jamie for Christmas himself despite the fact that he didn't celebrate if he had even the vaguest idea what Jamie might like—and he definitely didn't want to assume that Jamie would want to work on the holiday without checking.

"I want to avoid whatever hellish twenty-four hour happy-holiday-movie marathon they've got running, does that count?" Jamie shrugged. "I thought I might go over to Caitie's, but they're going out of town this year too so that's not happening. Why?"

"I usually put myself on the schedule for Christmas Eve and Christmas to give the rest of the squads as much time with their families as I can, and I was wondering if you'd mind if I included you too. If Tyler ends up being around on the twenty-third," as much as Alex hoped that wasn't the case, "you can swap out your shift that day with him."

"If he doesn't want to I'm fine with both," Jamie said. "But I didn't know you ever went out."

"It doesn't happen often. Mostly only over the holidays or if we're absolutely desperate for coverage. It can be a little tricky sometimes with my back—I was actually planning to swap out with someone on Thanksgiving until the weather made that impossible—but I can do it when I have to. It'll be you, me, Ryan Green, and Dave Mitchell." Neither Ryan's nor Dave's squads were on over the holiday even as backups, but Ryan had offered to come in since he didn't celebrate, and since Dave didn't have his girls this year, he'd told Alex to put him on the schedule for whenever as well. "Do you know them?"

"Well enough to say 'hi' if I see them at that station, but that's about it."

The usual procedure was to keep three and four man squads together so they could learn each other's habits and settle into a good rhythm, and he almost never mixed the high school and adult squads so it was no surprise that Jamie didn't know either man well. For a day it shouldn't make much of a difference.

"I don't think four of us can do forty-eight hours straight, though," Jamie continued. "Unless it's going to be really, really quiet."

"It usually is a pretty quiet time, but the maximum we can do is still twenty-four hours so I'll have us on from four pm on Christmas Eve to the same on Christmas day." Technically there would be another squad on call as backup and a secondary behind them, but at least they'd be at home with their pagers. He put Jamie's name into the on-duty sheet alongside his and then flipped his computer shut and pushed himself to his feet. "If you and Tyler want to switch, let me know, but for now let's hit the grocery store and then we can go home. Did you have time to get started on your homework?"

"It's _Saturday_ ," Jamie said with a groan.

"And tomorrow will be Sunday, and then comes Monday. And school."

* * *

"Okay, good, so two possible answers," Alex said, indicating the page in front of Jamie. "Do you think the ball hit the ground before you threw it?"

"That's cheating," Jamie returned, but he crossed out the negative five and circled the seven. "If they're going to give me two answers, two answers should be right."

"And hang on one more second," Alex said as he started to move on to the next problem. "It's a problem involving time, right? So what are your units?"

"This is _all_ cheating."

Alex smiled as Jamie scribbled down 'seconds' quickly, next to the number. Math was clearly not Jamie's favorite subject, even if he was muttering fewer curses than he had been before Alex had sat down beside him. Then again, that was probably because Alex was sitting beside him. "It looks like one more and you're done," Alex pointed out. "Isn't that better than trying to hurry and finish on the bus in the morning?"

"Not really, since usually I don't do weekend homework at all," Jamie said with a scowl. "In fact, my teacher will probably have a heart attack if I actually turn in homework on a Monday. Do you really want to be responsible for that?"

"If it happens you know how to deal with it, don't you? And if it doesn't you'll set a happy precedent. One more." Alex tapped the page lightly.

"Can I just point out that I don't really _care_ when the fly gets to the end of the train? And I don't think anyone else does either since if someone would just swat the stupid fly it wouldn't be an issue any more."

"Finish your homework, Jamie."

Jamie sighed and then gave in and began to copy the numbers from the last problem on his paper. "Why don't you, anyway?"

"Hm?"

"Why don't you celebrate Christmas? If you were Jewish you'd be starting Hanukkah tonight, but you're not doing that either."

"No, I'm not Jewish, but I'm not exactly Christian, either. It's...along with moving up the hill and raising goats instead of cattle and a few other things that their parents weren't at all thrilled with, my parents and their friends also invented their own religion that doesn't coincide with much of the rest of the world."

Jamie looked over at him. "You can invent a religion?"

Alex rocked a hand. "I imagine that it would be harder now, but back then in pretty much the middle of nowhere they managed. I know there were a lot of factors that led up to it...one of the big ones was my dad's older brothers and some other boys from the area getting drafted for Vietnam and then not coming back, but then you had the anti-war protests turning into protests against 'the establishment' and whatever that represented at the time, Watergate which fed right into that, an oil crisis, and a bunch of other stuff that I probably never even heard about since I wasn't born until after things were up and running." Plenty of stockpiled drugs from those older brothers and some others who'd had a good time in the 60s had been involved too, but there was no reason that Jamie needed to know about that part. "Honestly, I suspect if the group as a whole hadn't had blood ties to most of the other families in the area we'd have been called a cult."

Jamie's eyes went wide, and Alex shook his head. He didn't talk about his past all that often, if only because as he'd learned in college it made anyone even thinking about a psychology degree start taking copious notes, but Jamie had as much right as anyone to ask. He was the one not-celebrating with Alex this year, after all.

"Anyway, since my only exposure to the typical American holidays as a kid was the other kids at school making fun of us for not celebrating—well, that and my grandparents trying desperately to sneak 'church' in while my parents weren't looking, and never mind that that was more confusing than anything else since their stories were never anything like consistent—I never saw the point in starting once I was out on my own. Granted that I don't celebrate the invented and-or stolen holidays from my parents' religion either, but..." Alex shrugged. "It is what it is. Now, finish your math homework."

Jamie groaned.

"Finish and have some hot chocolate," Alex suggested. He generally preferred coffee or tea, but Jamie had found half a canister of the stuff in the back of one of his cabinets and had started working his way through it.

The last problem was similar to one they'd worked before and Jamie was able to complete it on his own without any prompting from Alex. At which point he escaped to the kitchen and chocolate and Alex let him go. Jamie was getting better about getting his homework done, and despite what he seemed to think his teachers would somehow survive the experience.


	14. Jamie: School's Out

_Thanks to everyone who read and to MelsieR for reviewing._

* * *

Jamie stepped off the bus with a sigh of relief and headed up the street to Alex's. Free, and free for almost two whole weeks at that. Well, he was on the schedule for several days at the station, but that wasn't a big deal. Not having to go to school was the important part.

It was still cold, but the roads were finally clear of snow, and the lack of snow in the forecast for the next couple days meant that he could get his bike out tomorrow and head down to Crossville for a visit. And maybe Alex would let him keep his bike in the garage afterwards. It wasn't that the buses were horrible, but they were nowhere near as convenient as having his own wheels, and there was plenty of room in the garage without even having to move anything. Adults didn't always like motorcycles, though, and he had a feeling that it was the kind of thing that Alex would be picky about.

He saw Alex's car coming from the other direction as he was turning up the driveway, and he waved and stepped aside as Alex pulled into the garage. Some meeting must have been canceled because Alex didn't usually get home this early.

"Hey," Alex greeted as he got out of the car. "How was school?"

"Done _. Finally._ And no, I don't have any homework." Which was true, although even if he had had some he probably wouldn't have admitted it. Lately when he admitted that he had homework Alex made him do it, and even if Alex was good at math and science and all of that crap and could usually spot whatever stupid error Jamie was making and show him how to fix it, it was still homework and he didn't see the point most of the time. He got by on tests well enough to pass, especially since his teachers didn't expect him to do more than squeak by anyway.

Alex smiled and shook his head, shutting the exterior garage door before following Jamie inside. "Fair enough. Do you have any plans for the evening?"

"Nah, everybody is busy with family and holiday planning and whatever." Everybody he'd seen, anyway. Kenny hadn't been at school today, but considering that it was the Friday before a break that wasn't really a surprise. "I was thinking about going to go down to visit my grandma tomorrow, though."

Alex nodded. "That's a good idea. Can make it on your own, or do you need a ride?"

"I'll be fine, I was planning to grab my bike since the roads are all clear now. Clear down there too; I checked."

"All right." He took off his coat and hung it up in the closet. " You'll be back by eleven?"

"Oh, yeah, visiting hours don't last that long anyway." Jamie usually just tossed his coat on the chair in his bedroom, but since Alex was holding out a hand he dropped his backpack to the floor and shrugged out of i, handing it over for Alex to hang up too.

"Okay."

"I..."

"What?" Alex asked, looking back at him as he trailed off.

"Would it be okay if I brought it back here afterwards? My bike, I mean."

"Sure, there should be plenty of room in the garage. Where have you been keeping it, anyway? I can't imagine that the school lets you leave it parked in their lot."

Jamie shook his head. "My grandma has a storage unit up here. From before, when she thought the nursing home was temporary and she'd be able to move back into her own apartment sometime. Dad said he wouldn't pay for it so she set up some kind of automatic transfer thing that's still in place." Jamie still wasn't sure how that worked, but he wasn't looking that particular gift horse in the mouth too closely, either. Mostly he just hoped that whatever arrangement she'd set up lasted until he turned eighteen. "She doesn't have a lot in there, just a couple pieces of furniture and some boxes of clothes and whatever, so I made some room for my bikes when I haven't got anywhere else to keep them." Plus his gear and guitar, but those just got stacked on top of other things so they didn't really count, and he definitely wasn't going to mention that he sometimes slept there in better weather.

"Bikes, plural?" Alex picked up his briefcase again and turned down the hall towards his room, waving at Jamie to follow.

Jamie looped his backpack back over his shoulder and trailed after him. "I ride motocross. Not too often," mostly since spare parts and tires and that kind of thing didn't come cheap and he sure as hell didn't have the money to travel to the big competitions, "but I try do at least one or two races a year."

"Oh, that's right. Your friend took a nasty fall earlier this year when you guys went off somewhere that you shouldn't have."

Trust Alex to remember that. "Yeah."

"When did you start?" Alex asked, putting his briefcase on the dresser and taking off his suit jacket. "I imagine there's probably room for both bikes here if you'd like to bring them both."

Jamie shrugged. He was probably right about the space, but there was no reason to bother with the dirt bike. He wouldn't be taking it out again until mid-spring at the earliest, and he'd be long gone from here by then. "For motocross, one of my foster brothers awhile back gave me his bike and gear and stuff when he joined the Navy. He and his dad used to ride and he managed to hang onto it somehow when he got dumped into the system, but then it wasn't like he could take it with him to basic training, and he didn't have anyone else to give it to. It took a couple years before the gear really fit right, but it works pretty well now." He'd replaced the nameplate, but that was all it had really needed.

"And your other bike?"

Tie and shoes were hung up neatly alongside the jacket and set aside on a closet shelf respectively, and Jamie made himself refrain from rolling his eyes. Alex didn't like eye rolls, but there was neat and there was obsessive and Jamie was pretty sure he knew which one Alex was. "The foster family I was with last spring...well, they didn't exactly want me hanging around the house too much or anything, but the neighbor who lived behind them had an auto shop. He let me work there sometimes and I had enough by the time they got rid of me to buy my bike and get it ride-able." Fortunately his foster parents had never actually talked to the neighbor or learned that he'd been getting paid or they'd have confiscated the money 'for his own good.' "His shop is kind of out of the way now, but I still do jobs for him sometimes when I can." Having work at the station on top of school made it tough, but he'd try for more again next summer.

"Were you even sixteen at that point?" Alex asked with a frown. "How did you get a license?"

"I was a couple months shy, but I met hardship qualifications. And I'd been riding motocross enough by then that it wasn't hard to pass the road test after Sonja filled out the forms. Nobody's ever asked to see it, though. I'm a good rider." He felt his shoulders come up at the sound of a belt slipping through loops, but Alex was only putting it with the rest of his dress clothes, and he made himself take a slow breath and hoped Alex hadn't noticed.

"You have a helmet?" Alex asked, turning back towards him.

"Yes. And yes I always wear it."

"Good. And no one rides with you without one?"

"Got a spare for passengers," Jamie agreed. He wasn't stupid; getting pulled over would be a good way to lose that license. It might not matter as much now that he was sixteen, but tickets were another expensive item.

"Good," Alex repeated. He sighed and flipped his briefcase open quickly before nodding and shutting it again, waving at Jamie to precede him back into the main room. "You just got home so I know you haven't had a snack, and I can't say that I feel much like cooking tonight. What do you say we have an early dinner? Get a pizza delivered and find a movie that looks good?"

"For real?" Jamie asked, turning to look back at him. They'd had takeout once or twice before, or Alex had picked something up on the way home, anyway, but he was usually pretty picky about sitting at the table and didn't watch much television at all outside the news from what Jamie had seen. Once in awhile he'd come out and join them if they were all watching something at the station, but even that was pretty rare.

"For real. You find a movie that looks good and I'll see about that pizza? There are some DVDs in the cabinet under the TV if there's nothing on television."

"Okay."

"Is there anything in particular you want on the pizza? Or don't want?"

Jamie shook his head. "I like everything." He might think Alex bought weird things at the grocery store sometimes, especially when it came to vegetables—he hadn't actually known what a whole radish looked like until last week—but he had better sense than to complain when the food was in front of him. Especially since Alex let him have as much as he wanted.

"All right."

Jamie headed for his room to drop off his backpack and boots and then returned to the living room and grabbed the remote. Alex didn't get that many channels, and he had no idea what might be on tonight. A quick flip through didn't show anything that he was interested in: Christmas crap, news, more news, more Christmas crap, football crap, and some romance thing that was probably set at Christmastime given his luck. Not that he was very interested in romantic comedies when it wasn't Christmas either.

He dropped down in front of the television and opened up the cabinet. History movie, history documentary...ah, that was better. Alex actually had some books he liked, and he never said anything when Jamie borrowed one—well, as long as Jamie remembered to put it back when he was done, anyway—so it made sense that he might have a few movies that were watchable.

Jamie didn't recognize the comedian on the front of the next DVD he pulled out, but the jokes on the back looked funny, and when he looked he found a few more by the same guy so presumably Alex liked him.

"Did you find something?" Alex asked.

Jamie held up the DVD.

"That's a good one. The pizza should be here in twenty minutes or so."

Jamie put it in and then moved back to sit on the couch. And then stretched out on his side since Alex took the recliner and no one else was around to claim it. "Isn't it kind of early for you to be home?" he asked as the warnings started to play.

"Third Fridays are usually town council meetings," Alex agreed, "but they went into special session early to deal with some budget issues, so there was no reason for me to stay."

"Are there always budget issues? I mean, it seems like it," or at least Alex spent a lot of time muttering over spreadsheets, anyway, "but the EMT service can't just go away, right?"

"Well, for once it's good budget issues. That doesn't happen very often, but this time of year you've got a lot of people making charitable donations, either for the holidays or for year-end tax purposes in general, and some of that filters down to us. It's just a matter of arguing about how to portion it out, because you're right, the rest of the year we usually do have the other kind of budget issues. They can't remove ambulance service entirely, but they could try to shift us out to the county level, they could hire out to a for-profit service, they could cut our supply budget even further..."

"Wait, how could they hire someone when they're talking about cutting the supply budget?" Jamie asked, tilting his head back to look at Alex. "That doesn't even make sense."

"Welcome to politics." Alex shook his head. "The idea is that contracting with a for-profit would mean involving people with more experience and and a network of suppliers that runs across a wider area than we ever could, therefore they could be more efficient and keep costs down even when they have higher actual overhead. In my opinion that's exactly as stupid as it sounds and the costs will at minimum double, but I have a slight conflict of interest that means that some of the council members don't pay as much attention to me as I would prefer. These donations are actually a good thing in that respect because if it was a for-profit service everything would have to come out of the city budget and most people recognize that, but then you've got other city programs that would be just as happy if that happened since their donation allocation would go up.

"That sounds like a headache." Not to mention that Jamie had a hard time imagining people ignoring Alex—he knew firsthand how well that _didn't_ go for him—but adults were weird.

"That is an understatement, and I get to have the same argument almost every month at the council meetings when the budget reviews happen."

Jamie shook his head. No wonder Alex got grumpy sometimes.

The DVD finished its run through FBI warnings and boring credits and the comedian launched into his first spiel. And Alex grabbed the remote off the arm of the couch and stopped it.

"What?" Jamie asked, tilting his head back again.

"I forgot about that. You do not need to be listening to that kind of language."

Jamie did roll his eyes at that. "Alex, I was listening to worse than that before I started school. I could probably out-swear you without breaking a sweat."

"That sounds like an excellent way to get yourself grounded for a very long time, and whether you know the words or not, that does not make it something acceptable for you to be watching."

"Come _on_."


	15. Alex: Holiday Day 1

_Thanks to everyone who read MelsieR for reviewing. I'm still here, just have that pesky real life thing to deal with on occasion :)._

* * *

"Yes, Mayor, I understand. I'll certainly be prepared." Which wasn't what Alex wanted to say, but he was a professional, and she was his boss.

There was the click of a line disconnecting, and he set the phone down a little harder than he probably should have. It wasn't that he objected to the idea of conference attendance, but he preferred actual medical conferences. Or those targeted towards research and advances in emergency service programs. The sorts of things that he could derive value from. This kind of conference was little more than a dog-and-pony show for politicians looking to display their 'good works.' He didn't have to wonder about the mayor's motivation, not with elections on the horizon, but that didn't make him like it.

Especially since she was very specific about what she wanted him to present. If this conference was anything like the last one that he'd spoken at, also at her request, the crowd would consist mostly of bored politicians waiting for their turn to show off. People more interested in checking their phones than paying attention. With the exception of the occasional idiot—or political rival, he frequently had a hard time telling the difference—determined to focus on some ridiculous triviality or drag his presentation off on one asinine tangent or another, of course. It wasn't that the medical and scientific communities didn't have more than their fair share of rivalries, but city politics were in a class of their own.

He was more than half tempted to suggest that Jennifer present instead, but she'd already been brought in as his assistant with the stated intent of bringing 'new blood' into the program. He wasn't particularly interested in giving them more excuses to replace him.

With a sigh, he pushed himself up from his desk. The fact that the mayor's call had come in at 9am on a Saturday didn't precisely improve the message, either. Not that he didn't appreciate the heads-up, especially since he now had Jamie to think about, but it was two weeks out. It could have waited until Monday. Then again, with the holiday next week, she'd probably thought that she was being courteous.

He'd had a shower when he'd woken up and had just been considering making breakfast when she'd called, but now his stomach was starting to grumble, and he headed for the kitchen.

When he looked over the back of the couch, he found Jamie still fast asleep. Not a surprise, he still wasn't a morning person and the two of them had ended up watching not only his comedy DVD—with the caveat that if he ever heard Jamie using that kind of language he was grounded for a month no questions asked—but also the majority of two ridiculous shark movies that had been showing on television afterwards. Jamie had seemed to enjoy them, but he'd been fast asleep before the end of the second.

Alex had nodded off for a few minutes too, but he'd learned shortly after injuring his back of the painful consequences of sleeping anywhere other than a firm mattress, and eventually he'd made himself get up and go to his room. He'd given Jamie's shoulder a quick shake on the way and suggested that he head for his bed as well, but it had been met with a sleepy complaint and no movement, and since he seemed reasonably comfortable and there was no way that Alex could move him without cooperation, Alex had tossed a blanket over him and left him where he was.

Jamie had put the remains of the pizza in the refrigerator after he'd collected his second helping, and Alex checked quickly to find two pieces left. Enough for lunch for one of them, but not something that he wanted for breakfast, and he put on a pot of coffee and then started eggs and sausage on the stove.

"Alex?" Jamie asked, wandering in rubbing his eyes a few minutes later as the smell of coffee started to spread.

"Good morning," Alex greeted.

"Mm." He stared at the coffeemaker for a minute and then blinked again and turned to get two mugs.

"Plates too, please."

It took Jamie a minute to process the request, but a few sips of coffee left him looking a little more alert, and plates appeared beside Alex and he went to set the table with napkins and silverware.

"Do you want a ride to wherever this storage place is that you're keeping your bikes?" Alex asked. "I can drop you off on my way to to the grocery store."

"It's kind of out of the way."

That wasn't a no, and Alex shrugged as he split the eggs and sausage between the two plates. "It's not a big deal. Depending on where it is, there are a few other errands I need to run anyway." Most of the storage places that he knew of were out on the west edge of the city, not a direction that he normally went, but it wouldn't be a bad idea to stop at once of the warehouse stores in the area and grab a big bag of rice and few other staples that he was going through faster than usual with Jamie here.

"Do you want me to help with grocery shopping first and then you could drop me off after?" Jamie asked.

Alex hesitated for a moment. If he'd been thinking about it he'd have gone shopping as soon as he'd woken up, but the idea hadn't even occurred to him. "If you don't think it'll delay you too much, I'd appreciate it. With two of us we should be able to get in and out before the crowds get too bad." And get bad they absolutely would since it was the last Saturday before Christmas.

"It won't. The nurses don't like visitors coming in until they've had time to clean up after breakfast and morning medications anyway. At least when it's me. I think they're less picky about adults."

"Different rules for minors wouldn't surprise me." He'd be more concerned if they didn't have them, although Jamie was probably considered old enough to skirt the line. "All right, then, we'll do it that way. Thank you."

* * *

The sound of the door in from the garage opening distracted Alex from his computer, and he looked up. "Jamie?"

"Yeah."

"Hey. How was your visit?"

"Okay."

That sounded less than encouraging, and Jamie headed for his room rather than joining Alex in the living room. Alex set his computer aside and pushed himself to his feet. A quick glance confirmed that a motorcycle had joined his car in the garage, and he shut the exterior door and grabbed the spare opener off the tool shelf before heading back inside.

"Jamie?" He tapped lightly on the closed bedroom door.

"I'm tired."

"Okay, but do you want a garage door opener to keep in your bag? It might make it easier to get your bike in and out."

"Oh." There was the sound of movement, and then the door opened. "Yeah. Thanks."

Alex handed it over. "Are you all right? Those leftover pizza slices are still in the refrigerator if you're hungry, or the rest of the soup I had." It was nearly four, so unless Jamie had eaten at the nursing home he was probably starving.

"I'm okay. I'm just tired."

Jamie refusing food was still a good indication that he was anything but okay, but it didn't give Alex much of a clue as to what he was supposed to do next. Personal issues came up as often in the lives of EMTs as anyone else, Dave's divorce and Val's father's heart attack being only the most recent examples, and he'd learned in his early tenure that being supportive and making sure that they had the time off needed to deal with those troubles went a long way in keeping his squads intact and responsive. To directly involve himself in anyone's personal life would be well beyond overstepping, though, and given that he was no kind of therapist, he was just fine with that.

With Jamie, though, for better or worse, he'd already done the 'involve' part, even if he'd never expected or intended it to be more than a very temporary situation. Terrifyingly enough—and it was terrifying when he thought about it—he was the closest thing to a parent that Jamie had at the moment which meant that just walking away wasn't an option. What he was supposed to say, though, he had no idea. He didn't have personal experience with dementia beyond the occasional patient at the hospital, but he was well aware that it was an ugly disease and not one that offered much in the way of hope to the families of those affected. "Do you want to talk about it?" he finally offered.

The look Jamie gave him said that Jamie was about as confused by Alex asking the question as Alex had been about what to say in the first place, but after a minute he shook his head. "No."

Alex nodded and stepped back, letting Jamie shut the door again. That could have gone better. Of course, it probably could have gone worse too. Small victories? Alex shook his head. He was not in any way qualified for parenthood.

At least Jamie had his motorcycle here now, though. Not that Alex was entirely thrilled with the idea of Jamie on a motorcycle, he didn't just know the statistics he'd seen the aftermath of more than a few accidents, but he understood economics as well as anyone else. It was the same reason that some people back home still drove ancient trucks that didn't even have seat belts. As long as there wasn't snow and ice on the roads, it would be more reliable for Jamie than the city bus system.

For lack of anything else to do, he went back to his computer and the presentation that he was adapting. Pull out anything involving in-progress research, add a happy cartoon creature, delete more science, and so on. Not really how he'd planned to spend the afternoon, but so it went.

A quiet sound caught his attention before he'd gotten through more than a couple more slides, and he turned to find Jamie by the far end couch. "Hey. Did you decide that you were hungry?" Although if that was the case he'd probably have just headed for the kitchen; Alex had finally convinced him that he didn't have to ask about that kind of thing. Or he thought he had, anyway.

Jamie shook his head. "Can I watch another one of that guy's DVDs? The comedian?"

Some random program was playing on television, but Alex's focus had been on his computer to the point where he wasn't even sure what it was about. "Sure. Mind, same caveat about language."

That got a ghost of a smile out of Jamie, and he nodded and dug another DVD out of the cabinet, putting it in the player before stretching out on the couch and pulling the blanket back down over himself.

Alex returned his attention to his laptop as the credits began to play. He couldn't justify removing all of the numbers from the presentation, but he could simply them a little. And add more cartoons. "On the list of things that medical school did _not_ qualify me for."

"Hm?"

He hadn't meant to say that out loud, and he waved off Jamie's questioning look. "As of this morning I have to present at a conference on the third. It's not the type of conference that I enjoy." He paused. "I'm afraid that it means that you'll be on your own for the third and the fourth, though. Will you be okay?"

Jamie's forehead wrinkled. "I can stay here?"

"You can stay here until your social worker finds you a new placement. We talked about this."

"That's not...I mean, most people don't like it when I'm in their house alone." He scowled. "Like I'm going to set it on fire or something."

"Considering that you make it home before I do most of the time, if I was worried about that I wouldn't have given you a key." To be fair, if he hadn't already known Jamie he probably wouldn't have done that, but as it was he hadn't given it a second thought. "You'll be in a world of trouble if you decide to hold any parties while I'm gone, but I imagine that you can manage to keep yourself fed and the house from being incinerated without too much trouble."


	16. Jamie: Bad Day

_Thanks to everyone who read and to MelsieR for reviewing._

* * *

"Jamie, come on, head in the game," Hank snapped. "Where's the tape?"

"Right. I...sorry." Jamie pushed himself to his feet and hurried back to the ambulance. On another day he might have joked that a game was about the last thing that he'd involve himself in, but right now he was so far from his best that he'd probably be of more use if he just sat in the ambulance. Not that he had any idea what he was supposed to do about it.

Well, he could try to get some sleep, which was what he'd been attempting before this call had come in, but so far that hadn't been going any better than it had last night and he didn't see that changing until he was so exhausted that he fell over. Experience said that that would be tonight at best.

Or at least he really hoped that it happened tonight. If he was still this out of it tomorrow when he was working with Alex he didn't even want to think about how much trouble he'd be in. Not that he'd ever actually worked with Alex before, but Alex was the one who checked him off as he finished various levels of training, and he wasn't patient or forgiving even when the 'victim' Jamie screwed up with was just a dummy. Jamie screwing up in front of him when an actual human was involved didn't bear thinking on. At least Hank mostly just rolled his eyes and sniped at him a few times if he did something stupid. Well, normally, anyway. Today had been unusually bad and it was probably just as well that he wouldn't be seeing any of the rest of the squad for a few days after this.

The visit with Grandma could have gone better yesterday, but it could have gone worse, too. It had before, especially the couple times he'd visited in the evening. At least yesterday she'd recognized that he was her grandson, even if it had taken a couple tries to get to 'Jamie' and she'd seemed to think that he was around twelve or so. She'd been happy enough to chat with him, though, and he'd stayed to have lunch with her and then headed back when one of the nurses had come to take her to some art class.

Except he'd ended up back in town so early that he'd decided to swing by Kenny's to see if anything interesting was happening there, and what he'd found...

He'd suspected that Kenny was using before, with the mood swings and the quick glimpse of needles everything else, but somehow knowing it made things a hundred times worse. And he didn't know what he was supposed to do about it, either. Tell Kenny that drugs were bad? It wasn't exactly news, especially since they'd both watched Kenny's mom shoot up with every drug under the sun over the years. Nor was Kenny likely to care about Jamie's opinion even if Jamie got in his face about it. Jamie had practically had hysterics the first time Kenny had gotten drunk in front of him, and even knowing everything Kenny had still found that funny.

Tell someone else? Who? Their friends, sure, at least a couple of them if only to give them a heads-up, but it wasn't like they'd be able to do any more than he could.

Some adult? Yeah, right. Kenny's mom might put on a good show when other people were around, but beyond that she didn't give a damn, and the teachers at school would probably just throw a party celebrating the fact that now they had a reason to kick him out. Nor would Kenny care about any of their opinions any more than Jamie's anyway. And Jamie wasn't about to even breathe the word 'drugs' around Alex. Somehow staying with him was still going all right, and Jamie had no desire to end up homeless and hungry and cold again any sooner than he had to.

Jamie had tried swinging by Caitie's right after leaving Kenny's, mostly because he'd wanted someone to talk to, but her house had been quiet. Apparently they'd already taken off for their visit. He'd thought about going to see one of the others, but with Christmas right around the corner they were probably too busy to talk to him even if they were still in town, so he'd ended up just wandering around the park for a little bit before going back to Alex's with no new ideas about what to do.

Alex was too smart for anyone's good and had figured that something was wrong immediately, not that Jamie had done a very good job of hiding it, but fortunately he hadn't pushed beyond that initial, awkward offer. His conference thing meant that most of his focus had been on his laptop for the afternoon even to the point of letting Jamie pick what was on television, but he hadn't showed any inclination to leave the living room, and somehow the light tapping and occasional grumbles directed at the screen had been weirdly okay.

Those hours stretched out on Alex's couch hadn't given Jamie any ideas, though, nor had tossing and turning all night in bed. Avoiding Kenny might make him feel a little better, at least temporarily, but it wasn't like he was going to forget. Nor was ignoring it likely to change the situation unless Kenny decided to knock off being stupid on his own. Kenny might be his oldest friend, but Jamie already knew that he wasn't one for that kind of self-reflection.

"Jamie!" Val yelled..

Dammit. "Coming!" He grabbed the tape and hurried back to Hank and Val who were currently holding bandages on the woman's arm, trying to ignore their twin glares. The woman's injuries were more painful than severe, but Hank wasn't the only teammate that was irritated with him, and he was not looking forward to the call critiques on everything that had happened today. He'd managed to avoid _completely_ screwing anything up, but that was about the best that he could say.

Part of him almost wished that Tyler had been around to trade shifts with, but that was stupid considering that it would have meant that Tyler would have missed the holiday with his father that he'd been looking forward to for forever. Or at least for the past month. Jamie wouldn't put that on him ever. He'd just...deal. Somehow.

Val helped their victim up from her seat and out of the house towards the ambulance—the burns weren't deep, but she was old enough that transport to the hospital was very much recommended—as Hank spoke to her husband about where to tell their children and grandchildren to meet them. Jamie kept his mouth shut and did the cleanup. At least they only had a six hour shift today, and it was more than half over.

When they left the hospital Hank and Val had taken the seats at the front of the ambulance, and Jamie closed his eyes and leaned back in his seat in the back. He'd drink more coffee when they got back to the station and worry about trying to sleep later. Or figure out a solution tonight. Or do...something. Why did life have to suck all the time?

* * *

"Jamie?"

A hand on his shoulder woke Jamie with a start, and he jerked away, looking around quickly.

"Easy, just me," Alex said, stepping back and holding up his hands. "Your shift ended about an hour ago, but I didn't want to wake you up while I was still finishing paperwork. Are you ready to go home?"

"Oh." He swiped at his eyes. He vaguely remembered picking up a magazine and a cup of coffee and taking a seat at the table, but after that everything was pretty much blank. "Yeah. Hank and Val?"

"Already gone, along with Brooke. I got the impression that they were in a hurry, although Brooke says that you owe her some reports."

Jamie groaned. He knew that he was a couple days behind, he was pretty much always a couple days behind, but he hated reports. And for today's he'd probably have to sneak a look at Val's or Hank's just to know what the call-outs had been anyway.

Alex smiled. "There should be plenty of time to work on them tomorrow."

"Great." Jamie rubbed his eyes again and then pushed himself to his feet, snagging the magazine from the floor and the cup of coffee gone cold from the table in front of him. Not that the coffee had done him any good, clearly, but leaving dirty cups lying around the station was a pretty big no-no. "I've got to grab my backpack. Meet you at the car?"

Alex nodded and started to turn, only to stop with a quick hiss.

"Alex?"

He waved it off. "I'm fine, just a little stiff. It happens sometimes when I spend too long sitting in one place. I wasn't thinking or I'd have gotten up and gone for a walk yesterday afternoon." He nodded to the kitchen. "Go on, I'll be outside."

It only took Jamie a minute to drop things off, and Alex was just getting the car warmed up when Jamie joined him.

"Do you think you're up to helping me with dinner tonight?" Alex asked as Jamie buckled himself in. "It's a roast so it's going to take some time to cook, but I'd prefer to have something better than lunch meat to take to the station tomorrow. And I probably shoudn't be lifting pots in and out of ovens right now." He didn't look very happy admitting that, but if he was already stiff it kind of made sense. Alex was usually pretty clear about when he could and couldn't do things.

"Yeah, sure." Jamie mostly just picked at whatever was in the fridge when Alex wasn't cooking, there were always sandwich supplies or leftovers or cereal or whatever, but he'd watched a little when Alex did cook. He wasn't going to touch the stove himself since that probably would result in catching the house on fire, but it kind of looked like fun. Plus, food. He still wasn't exactly hungry, but he felt a little better after his nap. And if he didn't start eating normally again, Alex would definitely know that something was up.

He dropped his backpack in his room when they got home and then headed for the kitchen to join Alex.

"Can you get me the Dutch oven?" Alex asked, looking up from a recipe book.

"Uh..."

"In that cabinet down there," he said with a nod to the one by the dishwasher. "It looks kind of like a deep pot with a glass lid."

It took Jamie a minute to find it, tucked away at the back as it was, and he was surprised by the weight when he pulled it forward. No wonder Alex didn't think he should be lifting it if his back was already sore. "What's this even made of?" Jamie said as he pulled it out.

"Cast iron. I shouldn't keep it down there given how hard it is for me to get it out, but I don't use it all that often, and it's heavy enough that I'm not sure it's safe to keep it up higher." He patted the counter, and Jamie put it where he indicated and took the cutting board Alex handed him.


	17. Alex: Christmas Shift

_Thanks to everyone who read; as always reviews are appreciated._

* * *

Jamie's door was still shut when Alex got up, but that wasn't unusual. Jamie had gone to bed a little earlier than he typically did last night, but not by so much that Alex expected him to suddenly turn into a morning person. Alex put on a pot of coffee and then pulled out milk and eggs and started on French toast. He usually only cooked breakfast on Saturdays and Sundays, but since they were both in for a long shift today with only leftovers to tide them over, he figured they could use it.

A quick check out the window showed some light snowfall, but not much was sticking to the roads, and from the look of the sky it would be passing through pretty quickly. Good. Slick streets would not contribute to a calm shift.

Jamie still hadn't put in an appearance by the time the meal was ready, and Alex checked the time and then went to knock on his door lightly. "Jamie? Come on, breakfast."

No response, and he twisted the knob and stuck his head in. "Jaim, time to get up."

Jamie's bed was as close to made as it ever got with no sign of Jamie anywhere, and Alex stepped back and turned with a frown. "Jamie?"

The bathroom was empty, as was the library, and Alex hadn't somehow missed him sleeping on the couch. There were no notes anywhere either, and when he looked Alex wasn't happy to find an empty space in the garage where a motorcycle should be. Those flakes might not be sticking too badly now, but if he was wrong about the storm system passing through Jamie would be out on the streets on his bike exactly when he shouldn't be. And if he'd gone further than one of his friend's places, like down to Cartersville to visit his grandmother again—a distinct possibility, Alex figured, given how quiet Jamie had been the past few days—the weather had the potential to be a lot uglier.

Alex covered Jamie's plate and put it in the fridge before moving his breakfast to the table and sitting down to eat, but he found himself picking at it more than anything else. Jamie was a tough kid and more streetwise than most, but he was still a kid. Alex didn't even know the name of the facility that Jamie's grandmother was in, and he doubted that it would occur to Jamie to call for a ride no matter what the state the streets were in.

Fortunately he heard the rumble of an engine in the driveway before he could worry much more, and Jamie would have been blind to miss the disapproval on his face when he came inside.

Jamie halted immediately, looking surprised. "What'd I do?"

"Disappeared."

Jamie's forehead wrinkled. "What do you mean? I couldn't sleep so I went for a ride."

"And you didn't think to say anything?"

"No. I figured you were asleep."

Alex felt his jaw tighten. "As last I looked you were completely literate."

"Huh?"

He opened his mouth to snap again, but Jamie looked genuinely confused, and he forced himself to stop. They'd talked about how late Jamie was allowed to stay out, and he was good about cooperating—or at least he knew he'd get called on it if he wasn't—but there had never been a conversation about how early he was allowed to go out in the morning. Or about leaving any kind of note saying where he was going. Alex had never even thought about it, and given what he knew about Jamie's previous foster parents he doubted that it was the kind of thing they'd have cared about. "You need to let me know if you're going to take off like that," he said instead, keeping his voice as even as he could. "I'm not going to tell you not to go—not unless it's snowing and you're planning to leave on a motorcycle, anyway—but up and disappearing without a word is not acceptable."

"I always make it back eventually," Jamie said, his expression shifting into a scowl. "Anyway, it's not like it was snowing when I left. I'm not stupid."

"I know you're not, that's not the point."

"But—"

"Jamie, you're not in trouble, but I do not want you taking off like that again. If I'm not around or not awake or whatever, you can leave a note on the fridge. Is that understood?"

From the expression on Jamie's face he didn't understand, but after a minute he nodded slowly. "Tell you or leave a note." He lifted his head and his scowl returned. "I always go out after school and never say anything _then_ , though."

"Not in trouble is going to turn into not in trouble yet if you don't watch your tone," Alex warned. "And you also know when to be in for the night by, right?" Jamie didn't usually come directly home from school, although he did tend to be back by dinner time if he wasn't working, but when he didn't Alex's usual assumption was that he was out with friends. Now that he thought about it he probably should be paying more attention since he knew of at least one case where Jamie's friend wasn't the savory sort, but…later.

Jamie's scowl remained but he did nod.

"Same idea. Understood?" Alex repeated.

"Fine."

It was agreement so Alex let the grumbling in his tone go. He'd figure out how to deal with the after school stuff later, especially since there was more than a week before Jamie would be going back to school. "Thank you. There's French toast in the fridge for you if you're hungry."

Jamie looked startled. "For real?"

Alex always made enough for both of them and after a month Jamie should know that, but he kept his response to a nod. It only took a few minutes for Jamie to put his coat and helmet away and then he joined Alex at the table with his reheated breakfast.

"This is French toast?" Jamie asked as he reached for the syrup. "It's not…."

"Not what?" Alex prompted.

"It doesn't look like the kind in the box."

"French toast not out of a box is pretty easy to make." He paused. "I'll wake you up the next time I make it if you'd like." Alex was accustomed to cooking for himself, at least when he wasn't being lazy and ordering take out, and had mostly just started doubling his recipes without thinking about it since Jamie had joined him. Jamie hadn't seemed to mind helping out last night, though. Alex wouldn't necessarily trust him in the kitchen alone, not because he was worried about any intentional damage but because Jamie didn't seem familiar with much beyond the microwave and coffeepot, but he wouldn't object to another set of hands if Jamie was interested.

Jamie looked surprised for a minute and then nodded.

Whether it had been sleep or the impromptu motorcycle ride, he definitely looked better this morning, and Alex moved the last piece of French toast from his plate to Jamie's as the rest of Jamie's breakfast disappeared.

"Do you really think today will be quiet at the station?" Jamie asked, devouring it as quickly as his own. "There aren't going to be hundreds of people getting drunk and doing stupid shi—things?"

"Thank you, and that's more a New Year's Eve activity," Alex said. "Which is also coming up fast, but let's worry about one holiday at a time. For Christmas it's more likely that we'll be seeing a few accidents."

"Like car accidents?" He craned his head to look out the window. "It's not snowing _that_ bad."

"No, and I'm hoping that stays true since if it doesn't my prediction could very well change, but I meant accident accidents. Last year a guy put a nail through his hand trying to assemble a dollhouse for his daughter on Christmas Eve, and then some kid took her new skateboard down the front steps the next morning and broke her arm. The year before that deep frying turkeys was popular and there were a couple grease fires and some nasty burns." Fortunately that particular cooking technique had gone out of fashion quickly. "I've done this shift at the station since I've been here and did a few years in the emergency room before that, and it's typically pretty calm. The most common Christmas-related injuries happen when people are decorating—cutting down trees, putting up decorations on roofs, that kind of thing—and that's pretty much all done by this point."

* * *

"IV," Alex snapped.

Jamie was up and moving before he finished the second syllable, but Alex doubted that it was going to make much of a difference. From the expression on Ryan's face as he tried to keep pressure on the wound he knew it too, but that wasn't their call to make. Dave was keeping the two kids out of the way, and Alex almost wished he'd given that job to Jamie, but it was too late now. And Jamie was faster than Dave was, as the IV bag was suddenly in Alex's hand.

"Help Dave get the kids buckled into the ambulance," Alex ordered. Taking them along wasn't a great solution, but there was no one here who could keep them and no time to wait for someone to come. The hospital would have someone on hand who could deal with them.

"More bandages, too," Ryan added.

Jamie was smart enough to go for the bandages first, but the man was bleeding out so fast that they were nearly as soaked with blood as the rest by the time Jamie and Dave rejoined them. Alex held the IV steady as the other three transferred the patient to the cart and wheeled him quickly over to the ambulance.

The emergency room staff looked as tired as Alex felt as they took the injured man and his kids off their hands, and he sighed as he climbed back into the ambulance.

"I thought today was supposed to be quiet," Jamie said, following him in and slumping down in the second seat in the back.

"Usually it is. Apparently someone didn't get the message this year." It wasn't just the weather, either, although this was their third and by far the worst accident in rapidly-deepening snow from the storm that had kicked up early this morning. Since they'd come on yesterday afternoon they'd also responded to a tree fire, a choking child, a woman who'd somehow dropped a butcher knife _through_ her bare foot, a heart attack, a family-wide case of food poisoning, and an ugly incident involving a box cutter. They'd all managed to catch a few snatches of sleep here and there, but that was about it.

With the exception of yet another accident that had overlapped with the falling knife this morning none of the call-outs had overlapped so the other teams had mostly been able to remain at home with their families, but the way they'd been bouncing from incident to incident Alex was seriously considering calling the next team in early. As much as he hated doing it, they were all approaching their limits.

"Two more hours," Dave said with a sigh, echoing Alex's thoughts.

Ryan, currently driving, groaned. "No offense, Alex, but if we get one more call I'm coming off the volunteer rotation for next year. This is almost as bad as Halloween was. I hate to think what New Year's is going to look like."

Alex shook his head but couldn't argue the point. "Let's just get back to the station and try to get a little rest."

The radio announcer squawked obnoxious truism number seven about white Christmases as they rounded the corner, and Alex rubbed his forehead. Somehow he doubted that more snow was going to improve the situation.

As soon as they reached the station Jamie made a beeline for the bunk bed, burying himself under the blanket on the top bunk.

"Are you okay?" Alex asked, reaching over to scratch the back of his shoulder lightly.

Jamie rolled away from his hand. "I'm good. Just tired."

"Okay." Alex sat down on the bunk below him. "We'll stop and pick up some Chinese on the way home, all right?" The original plan had been soup and grilled cheese, but right now he wasn't sure he'd even have the energy to open the cans.

"Yeah," Jamie agreed.

The mattress wasn't the greatest, but right now Alex didn't care as he rolled onto his back and stretched out his legs. Unfortunately despite his exhaustion sleep wouldn't come, and after half an hour of staring up at the beams of the bunk above, he pushed himself to his feet and headed for the coffeepot. If he couldn't sleep, at least he could make sure that he was fully awake for the drive home.

"Hey," Eric greeted as Alex stepped into the main room.

"Couldn't sleep either?" Alex asked.

"Nah." He held up a coffee mug. "What's another two hours? Or even an hour and...fifteen, now."

Alex shook his head and grabbed a mug of his own. To damn long in his opinion, but it was what it was.

"So the kid is really staying with you?" Eric asked. "Jamie?"

"For a little while, yeah." He knew that Jamie had talked to his squad about it, and at this point it was pretty common knowledge that on the days when they were both at the station Jamie stayed after his shifts until Alex was ready to go or Alex waited until Jamie finished his shift to leave.

"He seems like a good kid. Not really what I expected when they were talking up their community service program."

"Me either," Alex admitted. Not that he still didn't have plenty of reservations about staffing volunteer squads with teenagers working off community service, but they'd gotten lucky with Jamie.

"Having fun going from zero to a hundred percent as a parent of a teenager?" Eric asked with a grin.

"I am out of my depth," Alex admitted. "Fortunately he's pretty self-sufficient." A little too self-sufficient sometimes, as evidenced by his actions this morning, but far better that than the alternative. "You've got two teenagers now, right?"

"Almost. Becca is fourteen—and it's fourteen going on forty, let me tell you—but Ryan won't turn thirteen until this summer. It's an experience." He snorted. "I think my mother manages to work 'I told you so' into about every third conversation that we have."


	18. Jamie: Accidents

_Thanks to everyone who read. As always, reviews are appreciated._

* * *

Quiet curses penetrated Jamie's consciousness, and he blinked and reached up to rub his eyes. It was easy enough to place where he was, stretched out on Alex's couch. He'd been hungry enough after their 24-hour Christmas shift to go through a couple cartons of Chinese takeout, but Alex had picked one of the history DVDs to watch with it, and Jamie hadn't bothered to try keeping his eyes open after the food was gone. History put him to sleep even when he didn't have a couch to lie on.

Cursing wasn't really a thing that happened at Alex's house, though, and he sat up cautiously. "Alex?"

There was a sigh. "Sorry, Jaim, I didn't mean to wake you. It's late, why don't you get to bed? You'll be more comfortable there."

Jamie yawned and shrugged, although it wasn't like Alex could see him in the dark room. There was nothing but more darkness outside the window, and the television was off, but he'd slept on the couch more than once and was perfectly comfortable on it, too. Especially since Alex usually put a blanket over him if he didn't already have one. Still, since he was awake, he pushed the blanket away and got to his feet.

He'd only gone a few steps in the direction of his room before he heard a quiet gasp behind him, and he turned back quickly. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Just moving a little slow."

He didn't sound very fine, and Jamie reached for the light switch by the table. "Lights," he warned a second before he hit them, and then he sucked in his breath and hurried back to Alex's side. Alex didn't just sound bad, he looked bad, hunched over with one hand braced against the wall.

"I'm fine," he repeated. "It happens if I fall asleep in the chair for more than a few minutes. I know better, but unlike someone else in the room I do enjoy documentaries and I thought I could make it to the end."

Alex was a total dork sometimes, but saying anything along those lines was likely to get Jamie a _look_ , and Jamie didn't think Alex could even turn his head right now without ending up in more pain. "Can I help?" he asked uncertainly. This looked way worse than anything he'd seen at the station, the closest had probably been how Alex had been moving the night that he'd brought Jamie back here, but even then Alex had been more mobile.

Alex hesitated and then nodded slightly. "In the medicine cabinet in my bathroom, bottom shelf, small bottle on the far left. Be careful, I think I got the top put back on correctly last time, but I don't pull it out very often."

Jamie nodded. And hurried. He was pretty sure that the wall was mostly what was keeping Alex upright. Fortunately there were only three bottles on that shelf, and the one that fit Alex's description was the only prescription one among the lot. The top was on, albeit a little crooked, and he took it back to Alex.

"Thanks." Alex grimaced as he opened it up with one hand and shook a pill out.

"Do you want some water?"

"I'm all right. Plenty of practice." He looked unhappily at the pill for a minute before dry swallowing it and tucking the bottle into his pocket.

"I...can I help?" Jamie asked again as Alex braced himself, clearly intending to continue down the hall. He wasn't sure if he was supposed to offer an arm, or if he was even allowed to offer, or what should happen now. Jamie didn't really like adults touching him, and Alex never made him unless it was something like with the inhaler, but offering help was different somehow.

Alex sighed and then nodded and reached out an arm, and Jamie ducked under it.

"What happened to your back, anyway?" Jamie asked as they started to move forward slowly.

"An ugly incident in the emergency room about ten years ago. The police brought in a couple men who'd been fighting, and as I was starting to stitch one of them up they decided to pick things up again. The officers weren't expecting that— _I_ wasn't expecting that—and I got caught in the middle." He sighed. "They weren't targeting me or anything, but I was lighter than any of them by a fair amount, and I'm no kind of fighter. By the time the police got them broken up again I'd taken a couple pretty bad hits, including one that damn near broke my spine across the edge of one of the treatment beds. As it was they had to fuse several vertebrae and, well, you can see the results." He started to shrug and then stopped, breath hissing through his teeth.

"That sucks," Jamie said. 'Alex' and 'fight' did _not_ go together.

"No argument here," Alex agreed. "And I hate using that kind of painkiller, but if I don't I won't be moving again for a few days. As it is you might be on your own for breakfast tomorrow."

Jamie still thought that it was kind of weird that Alex always ate with him when they were both around and even cooked sometimes. He was used to scrounging at best, not having someone give him the last of the bacon or sausage or whatever. Cereal or leftovers on his own was officially not a big deal. Alex being hurt was kind of more of one, though. "You don't have to go anywhere, right? I mean, you can stay in bed until you feel better?"

"No, I don't have anywhere to be for a few days. It'll pass by then." They made it into and across Alex's room, but as he was twisting to sit down on his bed he stumbled and his hand tightened sharply on Jamie's shoulder.

This time Jamie was the one who sucked in his breath. Alex wasn't a big man, but he had a pretty good grip.

Alex released him immediately. "Shit. I'm sorry, kiddo. Are you okay?"

Jamie shrugged and tried to keep his shoulder under Alex's hand until he was safely seated. "I'm fine. It's not...it's different when it's an accident and not somebody trying to hurt."

" _What_?"

Jamie's head dropped at Alex's tone stepped away quickly. He was apparently a lot tired-er than he'd realized because there was no way he should ever have said something like that out loud.

"Jamie, look at me. Now."

Alex had never sounded like that before, and Jamie moved back a little more before lifting his head.

"Accidents do happen, and when they do you deserve an apology the same as everyone else, but no adult—well, no one, but especially no adult—has any business trying to hurt you. You know that, right?"

Jamie shrugged and looked away. What grown-ups were supposed to do and what they did do were rarely the same thing in his experience.

There was silence for a moment, and when Alex spoke again his voice was very even. "New rule. If someone hurts you, or tries to hurt you, or anything like that, you tell me. I don't care if you're living here or not; you tell. Is that understood?"

He shrugged again. It wasn't like it was Alex's problem when he pissed off the fosters of the week. He was still amazed that Alex hadn't kicked him out yet.

"Jamie that wasn't a suggestion, and I expect an answer when I ask you a question. Am I understood?"

Alex shouldn't be able to sound that strict when he couldn't even stand up, but a quick glance told Jamie that he wasn't joking and he wasn't going to let Jamie off, either.

"'nderstood," Jamie said quietly.

"Good. Thank you for your help, and I'll see you tomorrow morning, okay? Sometime."

"'Goodnight," Jamie said, turning and heading towards his room. "I—you want me to hit the lights?"

"Please."

Jamie plunged Alex's room and then the living room back into darkness before escaping to his own room. Alex's spare room. Definitely Alex's spare room. With the holidays passing Sonja would be finding him a new placement soon, and it would be stupid of him not to be ready for that.


	19. Alex: New Years

_Thanks to everyone who read. As always, reviews are appreciated._

* * *

"Alex?"

He looked up to find Jamie hesitating in his office doorway. "Hey. Are you ready to go home?"

" _Very_."

Alex smiled. It was now quarter after three in the morning and every other team coming off duty had expressed the same sentiments. Normally he'd have left by now himself, it was late even by New Years standards, but with Jamie still on and the streets in no shape for a motorcycle Alex had stayed to give him a ride. "At least we can both sleep in tomorrow. Where's your coat?" Jamie held it up, and Alex nodded and stood, slipping into his own. And then frowned when Jamie made no move to put his on. "Come on, Jaim, it's cold out."

"A beer keg exploded on me on our last callout. I can still smell it, and I don't want it to get wet." He gestured at his coat.

Alex couldn't smell anything, although that explained why Jamie's hair was damp—he must have jumped in the shower when they got back the station—and he shook his head. "Unless you've got plans to go out tomorrow, we can throw your coat in the wash at the same time as the rest of the laundry. Right now you don't need to be wandering around outside in the cold without it."

Jamie didn't look very happy, but he did as Alex said, and Alex was just as glad as they stepped out the door and into a blast of frigid wind.

"I hate winter," Jamie muttered.

"No arguments here." Especially since the forecast said that it wasn't going to be getting better anytime soon. Which wasn't really a surprise given that it was the first of January, but it still wasn't appreciated. He flipped the heater to high as soon as they were both in the car and then turned out onto the main street. "So aside from getting doused, how was the night?"

"Okay. Way less busy than Christmas."

Alex shook his head. "I swear that was unusual."

Jamie grinned.

"Nothing serious?"

"Nah, mostly just drunk people being stupid. One lady fell in a pool."

"In this weather?" That sounded pretty damn serious to him; a few minutes in ice-cold water risked frostbite and hypothermia at best.

"Indoor pool. Some kind of jungle-party-theme thing for seniors at the rec center. I guess she tripped over a fallen palm tree. I think her ankle was bruised up the worst."

"Ah." Better than he'd been envisioning, anyway.

"Mostly it was people bleeding from doing something dumb who just needed bandage and to go sleep it off somewhere." He snorted. "Even the guys at the parties I go to aren't that stu—" he cut himself off with a quick gulp, and Alex leveled a glare.

"You are _way_ too damn young to be going to any parties where alcohol is being served."

"Well, it's not like _I_ drink," Jamie said quickly. "I don't even like the smell!"

Alex paused and tried to make sure his voice was even when he answered. Not that Jamie wouldn't be in for a hell of a tongue-lashing if Alex ever found out he'd attended any parties like that while he was staying with Alex, but yelling at him for something that had happened in the past wouldn't help anything. "I'm glad to hear it, don't think I'm not, but that's completely beside the point. I don't know what your friends' parents are thinking letting that kind of thing happen in their homes, but its not the kind of situation that you need to be in."

"But—"

"We're not having a discussion on this one, Jamie. Drinking, at least at your age, is right up there with drugs on the list of things that can land you in a lot more trouble that you can deal with." Not that it was great for people older than Jamie, either, at least if they hadn't learned to do it responsibly, but that was a talk for another time. "Even if it's just the people around you that are actually drinking, their actions can bring trouble right back down on you, and I think you've already been in enough trouble for one sixteen year old. Yeah?"

Jamie glared and crossed his arms over his chest. "Was fifteen."

Alex took his eyes off the road for a moment to give him a look. "Do you think that improves your argument in any way?"

Jamie had enough sense not to answer back on that one, even if his expression stayed firmly fixed in a scowl, and Alex let it go. For now. He really did need to start talking to Jamie about where he was going after school and on the weekends, though. He was willing to believe Jamie about not drinking—conditionally, at least—but if the police caught Jamie at an underage party Alex doubted that it would matter.

The rest of the drive was made in silence, and then Alex caught Jamie as he tried to make a beeline for his room. "Bring anything that got beer on it to me and I'll put it in the washer to soak overnight, all right? We'll run the laundry tomorrow morning."

Jamie looked at him for a minute and then nodded quickly, but when he hadn't appeared by the time Alex was ready for bed he went looking. The door to Jamie's bathroom was shut, but he'd been a doctor far too long to mistake the sounds of retching as anything else, and he tapped quickly. "Jamie? Are you okay?"

"'m fine."

He didn't sound fine, and Alex shook his head. "I'm going to come in."

Jamie didn't argue, and Alex wasn't surprised to find him kneeling in front of the toilet. "Sorry. I'm fine," he repeated, swiping at his face and refusing to meet Alex's eyes. His face was red, and Alex wasn't sure if it was from embarrassment or something else.

"There's nothing to be sorry for, and you don't look very fine." Alex started to step towards him, only to halt as Jamie pulled back against the tub, arms wrapping around himself defensively. "Jaim? What's wrong?" It looked like Jamie had taken another shower before changing into a sweatsuit, which seemed like overkill, and his coat was piled up with the clothes he'd been wearing earlier. He remembered that damn book again and made sure that both hands were visible and relaxed as he stepped closer. "Come on, kiddo. I'm afraid this is one of those 'within reason' things. Let me take a look at you, and then it'll be done."

Jamie didn't look up at him but did manage a shrug and then a quick nod, and Alex knelt down in front of him.

There wasn't much in the toilet, probably because Jamie had eaten dinner before going on shift and hadn't had much time for snacks in the past six hours, but he reached out to flush it away anyway before turning his attention to the teenager. "Do you feel like you're getting sick? Stomach flu or something like that?" He hadn't heard about anything going around recently, but it wasn't out of the question at this time of year, and the ambulance squads were exposed to everything.

"No."

"Did you bump your head on something tonight?" That wasn't the kind of thing that Jamie was likely to forget to tell him, and even if he had Hank would definitely have mentioned it before leaving, but he'd seemed fine on the ride home.

"It's not any of that. I just..."

He shrugged, and Alex checked his forehead for any kind of elevated temperature, but his skin was no warmer than it should be for someone who'd just gotten out of the shower. "Just what?"

His flush deepened. "I just don't like the smell, and it wouldn't go away."

Not liking something wasn't generally enough to make someone sick to his stomach, but Jamie still wasn't looking at him, and after a minute Alex sighed. "All right. If you're sure that's all it is, I'm going to go toss that stuff in the washer. Why don't you brush your teeth and go lie down and I'll be back in just a bit."

It was more of an order than a suggestion, but Jamie didn't seem inclined to object, and it only took a few minutes to set the clothes to soak. There had been the smell of beer to the lot, albeit incredibly faint to his nose, and with a shake of his head he went to search the kitchen.

Normally he didn't keep much in the way of snacks in the house, and although Jamie's arrival had changed that somewhat, almost everything that Jamie preferred was sweeter than he was looking for. He definitely didn't have anything like ginger ale so on the liquid side there was nothing to offer but water, but... "Ah." He grabbed a packet of oyster crackers from a box he didn't even remember buying and took that and the water to Jamie's room. The door was standing open, but he tapped lightly anyway. "Jaim? Can I come in?"

Jamie was already curled under the heavy comforter, but he nodded. "Yeah."

"Do me a favor and sit up for a minute," Alex said as he approached the bed. "I want you to eat a few crackers and have some water."

"'m not hungry."

"I'm sure you're not, but your stomach is probably a little confused right now and I don't want you to be up in an hour going through that again. Can you try a couple sips of water and a couple crackers? I'll leave the rest here if you feel like more later."

Jamie bit his lip and then nodded and pushed himself into a sitting position, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed.

Alex took a seat beside him and offered the packet. "I'm a little confused why you'd even try going to a party where there's alcohol if your response to the smell is this bad," he said after a moment.

"It's not...I don't ever like it, but it's different with kids than adults. Or if it's something other than beer. I would have been okay tonight, but then it got all over me and I just couldn't make the smell go away, and..."

That first admission was an absolute guarantee that Jamie didn't need to be going to whatever parties he'd been attending in the past, but Alex let it go for now and put the rest of the crackers on the nightstand before offering Jamie the water. "A couple sips, and then you can go to bed. We'll see how you feel tomorrow." If Jamie was right and it was just a bad reaction to the last callout, all well and good, but if not he needed to call Jennifer and see if she could fill in for him at the conference because he wasn't going to leave Jamie alone for two days if he was sick.


	20. Jamie: Trouble

_Thanks to everyone who read and to tomfeltonlover1991 for reviewing (and I'm not sure why the edited version didn't post the first time, should be fixed now)._

* * *

"Thanks for the ride," Jamie said, forcing open the door of the truck against the wind and grimacing as the bite of it woke him up a little more. It hadn't been kicking like this when he'd ridden over to Cory and Isaac's house earlier, and he was very glad that he hadn't been stuck trying to ride his bike back home. Of course, he had been stuck on the floor at their house until it was time for Isaac to leave for his shift, not the most comfortable place to try to sleep especially since their heater hadn't been working very well, but it was only four-thirty so there was plenty of time for him to get some real rest in his own bed before it was time to officially get up for the day. Hopefully the wind would die down and he could pick up his bike sometime later this weekend.

Isaac waved back and then continued on down the darkened street, and Jamie headed for the front door, fumbling to get the right key out. He really hadn't slept very well on that floor, but the couch and recliner had already been claimed so there hadn't been a lot of other options.

And then the door was yanked open before his key even reached it, and all traces of sleepiness deserted him as Alex glared out at him. "Where the _hell_ have you been?!"

Jamie rocked back instinctively, going rigid. Alex wasn't supposed to be back until tomorrow. Well, today, technically, now, but not until later. Definitely not in the middle of the night.

"Do you have _any_ idea what time it is?" Alex barked. "Get in here!"

That was pretty much the last thing that Jamie wanted to do, not when Alex's hands were opening and closing like they were, and he stayed frozen where he was.

" _Now_ , Jamie!"

He wasn't stupid enough to think that disobeying was going to help anything, and he made himself edge his way around Alex, trying not to make it obvious what he was doing. The door shutting behind him—and the sound of the lock clicking into place—was not reassuring, though.

Alex's jaw worked. "Where _exactly_ have you been?"

Jamie kept his mouth shut.

"Answer the question, Jamie."

His voice was dangerously low, and his hands were still opening and closing. "Cory and Isaac's," Jamie said quietly. Not that the names were going to mean much to Alex, it wasn't like they were particularly close friends, and maybe that was just as well because he was pretty sure that Alex wouldn't like that their dad was usually out of town driving his truck and their mom wasn't around any more than his was. Or that their house was more than occasionally where the parties started. That hadn't happened last night, it had just been a couple of Isaac's friends hanging around, but...well, it wouldn't have surprised him if it had.

"And is there some reason you couldn't make it home on time?" Alex ground out. "Which, in case you forgot, was over six hours ago."

"I...no," Jamie admitted reluctantly. It didn't take a genius to know that 'because we were hanging out and then I didn't feel like riding through the wind' wasn't a good reason. He just hadn't figured that it would matter what time he got home as long as Alex wasn't around.

There was no way in hell he was going to say that out loud.

Alex's jaw worked for another long minute. "Next question: why do I smell smoke on everything? That's not just cigarette smoke, either, so don't try to tell me it is."

Jamie sucked in his breath. Oh, _shit_. Of course the smell was all over his jacket and clothes, everyone had been crowded into the front room because of weather even if it was something they would normally have taken it up to the roof. He hadn't thought anything about it at the time, it wasn't like it was a new situation for him after all, but there was no way in hell that being around that would fly with Alex. "I wasn't smoking, I swear," he said quickly. He had no idea if Alex would believe him—actually he was pretty sure that he wouldn't, all things considered—but it was true. Mostly. That one drag on Cory's just because he hadn't even been thinking about it didn't really count, especially since he had said 'no' when one of them had offered him his own. And he hadn't touched the other kind at all; he never did.

Alex continued to glare for a long minute as Jamie stayed frozen where he was, and then he shook his head and made a sharp gesture sideways. "I am way too angry to deal with you right now. Get to your room and get to bed. And don't even _think_ about going anywhere tomorrow."

Jamie hooked his teeth into his lip and did as Alex ordered. As much as he'd wanted to get away a moment ago...Alex had been angry at him plenty of times, but he'd never not told him what his extra chores were or how long he was grounded for or whatever his punishment was going to be right along with the yelling. Jamie didn't much like this version.

It only took him a few minutes to change and curl up in bed, but once he had he found himself flipping back and forth underneath the blankets unable to come anywhere near sleep.

It wasn't like whatever Alex decided on would be that bad. It couldn't be. Alex didn't even _have_ any really bad chores to give him considering how clean he kept this place, and the chores at the station were all things Jamie had done before. And grounding wasn't so awful either since he still saw all of his friends at—and before and after—school. Being grounded on the weekends and at night was kind of boring since Alex made him do his homework, but Alex mostly made him do that anyway, now.

And Alex wasn't the kind of man...he'd never hit Jamie before so he wasn't likely to start now. Or if he was going to start now, it would probably have been back in the doorway when he was so mad. He'd only sent Jamie to his room so that was okay. Anyway, he wasn't exactly a big guy so even if he did decide the belt was a better punishment it couldn't be that bad.

It was more likely that he'd just decide that Jamie was too much trouble to keep. Jamie flipped over again. That was something he could definitely see happening. He'd figured that Alex would kick him out before Sonja found another foster home anyway; hell, he hadn't even thought his time here would last a week back in the beginning. But he'd sort of...he was used to it here, now. He even kind of...

Another flip, and he wasn't getting any closer to sleep, and eventually he slipped out of bed and dragged the comforter after him as he curled up in the far corner.


	21. Alex: Panic

_Thanks to everyone who read and to MelsieR for reviewing._

* * *

Alex sighed and gave up on trying to sleep in any more, stitting up and swinging his legs over the side of the bed. At which point he couldn't help a wince as his back protested. Being able to lie flat for a few hours had mitigated the damage somewhat, but the couch had done him no favors last night.

Between the conference overbooking that had forced him into a hotel right next to the highway and a presentation that had been even more irritating to give than he'd expected, he'd been happy to cut things short and leave early. He hadn't expected to get home and find Jamie gone, though. Or, more to the point, Jamie gone and no note or anything else to be found.

He was a reasonably smart man and between the missing Jamie and the missing motorcycle it hadn't taken a lot to deduce that Jamie must have gone off to visit one friend or another, but as curfew and then midnight and then a few more hours had passed without even a message on the answering machine...even if he'd _suspected_ that Jamie had just decided to spend the night somewhere else, that was worlds away from knowing, and he still had no contact information for any of Jamie's friends.

He ran a hand through his hair. The whistling wind and snow blowing every which way hadn't done much to put his mind at ease, and at a quarter of three he'd finally given in and checked with the hospital. They'd had no one matching Jamie's description brought in, which had been a marginal relief although not as much of one as he might have expected, and Alex had ended up dozing on the couch—never a great idea for him—until the rumble of a truck had awakened him.

The real relief he'd felt at Jamie's return had been laced with anger at the kid for scaring him like that, and he hadn't done much to hide it. Especially after he'd recognized the mix of smoke smells on Jamie's clothing. Which...it hadn't been a great reaction and he wouldn't claim that it was, but if Jamie hadn't understood before that he'd messed up, he'd certainly been clear on the point by the time Alex had sent him to his room.

The rest of the house was quiet, as was typical given the hour, and Alex took a quick shower and then went to do a survey of the contents of the refrigerator. Given the lack of milk they'd need to go to the store at some point today, but for now he settled for putting on a pot of coffee and pulling out some eggs. He'd get breakfast going before he woke Jamie up; they'd both be better with some food in them.

Not that he knew what he was going to do with Jamie once he was up. He cracked the eggs into the pan and considered. The kid was grounded, that went without saying, but Alex didn't have any more chores to give him now than he had the last time Jamie had come home late. And trying to ground him for more than a week or two was likely to be more headache than it was worth anyway. Jamie might cooperate for a bit, even if he didn't like it, but after that he was basically guaranteed to start testing, and if Alex wasn't home to catch him at it—and realistically he wouldn't be, given his schedule—grounding him wouldn't end up meaning anything anyway.

And even if Alex did catch him ignoring his grounding, what was he supposed to do then? He could take away Jamie's keys, he supposed, but that would mean so much more coordination when it came to getting him between here and school and the station that it would probably be more of a hassle than anything else.

Although it might be worth that hassle if it got the point across.

He frowned as he realized that Jamie's motorcycle wasn't even here, someone had dropped Jamie off last night. Had something happened to it? Jamie was a good rider, but it was winter and the streets weren't in the best shape.

Shit. He flipped the eggs quickly and then went to wake Jamie. He couldn't remember asking if Jamie was hurt last night, and even if that was absolutely the sort of thing that Jamie should have mentioned immediately, Alex wouldn't care to bet on him knowing that.

Jamie's bed was empty when Alex opened the door, and when the bathroom, study, and once again couch proved to be empty as well he groaned out loud. Another round of disappearing teenager was _not_ something that he was up to dealing with right now. He was debating who he should call—not that he'd learned any of Jamie's friends' phone numbers in the last four hours, but his social worker was a definite possibility since not only might she know some of them, unlike last night it was almost a reasonable hour to be calling—when he heard a quiet thump.

Jamie's comforter had already been off the bed the first time he'd looked into the room, he just hadn't thought much about it, but now that he was paying more attention he realized that it was partially on top of Jamie who had somehow wedged himself between the bedside table and the far wall in a half-sitting position that Alex probably couldn't have mimicked if he tried. "Jamie?" He circled the bed quickly. "Jaim?"

There were no visible signs of injury, but as he watched Jamie twitched and muttered something unhappy, one hand knocking against the bedside table in an echo of the first thump that Alex had heard.

Alex reached down to give his shoulder a quick shake. "Come on, Jamie, it's time to wake up. Why are you on the floor?"

Jamie shifted again, a little more purposefully this time, and one hand came up to swipe at his eyes. And then he looked up, and Alex would have to have been blind to miss the look of terror that crossed his face as he jerked up his arms to shield himself.

If the fear hadn't been enough to startle Alex into stepping back, the sharp motion would have been, and he held up his hands quickly. "Jamie, relax! It's just me!" He was still standing over Jamie, albeit a foot or two away now, and he moved a little further back and then crouched down to Jamie's level, ignoring the twinge in his back. "Jamie, it's me," he repeated, lowering his voice. "It's Alex. You're okay. You were just having a bad dream, that's all. I'm sorry I startled you."

He took a chance and reached out slowly, and Jamie tried to burrow further into the wall, wrapping his arms around himself.

"Okay. Okay." He pulled his arm back. "No touching. Can you look at me?"

Jamie's eyes flicked up for a second and then away.

That hadn't been what Alex had been going for, he'd wanted a good look at Jamie's pupils. A nightmare was still Alex's initial conclusion, but under the circumstances he wasn't accepting that without some proof. "Jaim, this is important. Do you know where you are? Can you tell me if you're hurt anywhere?"

Jamie looked up again and then shook his head quickly. "I don't—I'm okay. I'm at your house. I didn't..." He took a shaky breath and pulled his arms in tighter.

"Didn't what, kiddo?"

" _Please_."

"Jamie, I don't understand what's wrong." The kid was still terrified, anyone could see that, but Alex couldn't even begin to guess why. "Can—shit." The curse escaped as he suddenly recognized a burning smell in the air, and Jamie cringed again. "Jamie, I—" He couldn't keep talking to Jamie right this second, that was what he couldn't do unless he wanted a fire in his kitchen, and he looked at the door and then back at Jamie. "Jaim, the eggs are burning and I need to go take them off the stove. I'll be right back, okay? Try taking some deep breaths."

Jamie didn't move, and he braced a hand on the wall and sucked in his breath as he stood, his back protesting. He made it up, though, and when he got to the kitchen he was relieved to find that nothing was actually on fire yet. The eggs were probably burned beyond saving, but that wasn't his primary concern at the moment, and he moved the pan to a cool burner and shut the stove off before grabbing a glass of water. He'd deal with something else for breakfast after he got Jamie calmed down.

Jamie was still on the floor in the corner when he returned, and he sighed. "Kiddo? Hey. No more burning eggs, but do you think you could come up and sit on the bed for a little bit? My back is giving me some trouble at the moment."

Jaime looked up again, and Alex was relieved to see that at least a little of the panic had faded as he nodded slightly. Even he couldn't have been too comfortable on that floor judging by the wince he gave as he pushed himself up with the assistance of the bedside table, but he didn't say anything as he took a seat against the headboard.

Alex smiled and sat down by the foot. "Thank you, that's much better." He held out the glass of water. "How about a couple sips?"

Jamie reached out hesitantly and took it.

"Can you tell me what's wrong?" Alex asked as he put the glass to his lips. "Are you sure you're not hurt at all? I noticed that your bike isn't in the garage."

"No, it's...I'm good. My bike is parked over by Isaac and Cory's." He took a surprisingly shaky breath and set the water down on the bedside table. "I went over yesterday afternoon and we were just hanging out, I swear, and then the wind started picking up and I didn't notice how late it was getting and then Isaac said he could give me a ride when he left for his shift and you weren't going to be home so I didn't think it would matter and—"

"Hey. Breathe," Alex said firmly, interrupting the stream of words that were rapidly becoming an avalanche. "It was smart of you not to go out on your bike if you didn't think it was safe."

Jamie shrugged.

"It wasn't so smart not to leave a message, though, was it? We've talked about that."

"I though I was just going to be there during the day. I didn't know I was going to stay overnight until it was too late."

"I've got an answering machine, Jamie."

Jamie blinked and then shook his head. "Oh. Yeah. I guess I didn't think about that. And I didn't think it would matter since you weren't supposed to be home until later today."

" _That_ is not a good answer," Alex said sternly. Although not thinking about the answering machine, he could understand. He wasn't happy about it, but he could see how it could happen. "And all that smoke?" he prompted. Since they'd apparently moved on to talking about last night.

Jamie flushed. "Some of Isaac's friends came over and they were..." He shrugged. "It was too cold for them to open the windows or go out on the roof or anything so it was all just everywhere."

"His parents were okay with that?"

"They're not really around too much."

Alex felt his jaw tighten a little, but he couldn't say that he was surprised. "Drugs aren't a good idea any more than drinking, Jamie, you're smart enough to know that."

"Well, I didn't know they were going to until they were already..." Another shrug. "And that was after it had already gotten bad outside, and I sure as heck wasn't going to ask for a ride home from one of them."

"And that was absolutely right." Not that Alex was thrilled about Jamie staying there with that sort of thing going on, but it wasn't as if he could have called Alex for a ride—or he hadn't known that he could, anyway—so Alex could see how he had found himself stuck. Alex had never even thought to make sure that Jamie had emergency money for a taxi or anything like that. "You didn't do any smoking?" he checked. "Not at all, of either type?"

Jamie squirmed a little. "Cory offered me a puff on his—just a regular one, I promise—and I didn't really think about it, but then one of them tried to give me one for myself and I said 'no.'"

Judging by the way he was shifting around, he already knew that that wasn't acceptable, and Alex sighed. "You know better, Jamie."

"I don't—I didn't mean—please—"

"Jamie? Hey, breathe." He started to reach out again, only to have Jamie jerk away with fear in his eyes. "Jaim, stop," he said firmly, taking his hand back. "Deep breath. Okay?" He waited until Jamie had done as he said. "Now, I need to you tell me what's up. I'm guessing you were having a pretty ugly nightmare when I woke you up, but you know where you are now, right?"

"Yeah."

"And you know that nobody's going to hurt you here."

"It's not...I can take it," Jamie said, fingers digging into the sheets. "I can. I'd rather the belt than..." He shook his head quickly.

"Than what, kiddo?" The words were out before Alex processed the first part of that statement, and then it was his turn to shake his head as he realized exactly what Jamie was afraid of. And why it wasn't going away along with his nightmare. "Never mind," he said before Jamie could try to finish his sentence. "I've never said this before, and I think maybe I should have, but let me make this very clear right now. There is no hitting in this house. Not now and not ever. Certainly not with a belt, or anything else either. It doesn't matter what you did, no one, not me or anyone else, is ever allowed to hit you or hurt you. Is that understood?"

Jamie's shoulders twitched, and Alex shook his head.

"Kiddo, I need words on this one. This is important. No hitting. Not ever, no matter what. Okay?"

"'kay." His eyes were still down, and it definitely wasn't the resounding agreement that Alex would have preferred.

"Jaim? Hey. Think about it this way. Even if I wasn't against hitting kids—or anyone else for that matter—just on general principle, which I am, and even if I hadn't taken a very serious oath not to do harm to anyone, which I did, it would be pretty damn stupid to hit someone who's just about as strong as I am, has a longer reach, and doesn't have a bad back. Right?"

Jamie's head jerked up, and he looked absolutely horrified. "I _wouldn't_ Alex, I swear I wouldn't, not even—"

"Of course you wouldn't," Alex interrupted. "Neither would I. That's my point. You're in trouble, yeah, but you've been grounded before. It's not something to be afraid of, is it?"

"No," Jamie agreed after a minute.

"Good. And this time you're going to have a book report to do too, but I know you've done those for school and survived them just fine."

"A book report?" The fear started to fade into a different kind of distress. "But Alex, I already _have_ homework."

That, at least, sounded closer to the Jamie that he knew, and he nodded. "Fortunately you'll have plenty of time to work on this right alongside it while you're grounded, won't you?" The book report idea hadn't occurred to him until a few minutes ago, and on second thought he didn't really like the notion of making reading a punishment, but on the other hand he had plenty of dry medical texts that were just about that even for med students. And he didn't have any better ideas. "You'll do a good job on it too because this smoking thing is going to stop, is that clear?"

"Clear," Jamie mumbled.

"Good." He tilted his head. "Are you going to be okay?"

"Yeah. I'm sorry, I didn't...I didn't mean to freak out. I just...you've never been that mad before and then you didn't say last night and I couldn't sleep and then when I finally did I started dreaming about..." He hugged himself again quickly.

Alex nodded. He'd figured that it would be better to take some time to cool off before he said anything specific, but obviously that hadn't been a good choice where Jamie was concerned. "There's nothing to be sorry for. That was my mistake. I'm sorry, and I'll try not to do it again. Can you try not to scare the heck out of me again?"

Jamie's forehead wrinkled for a moment and then he nodded.

"Good." He hesitated and then decided that a change of subject would be the best thing for both of them right now. "Are you hungry?"

"Not really."

That wasn't exactly a surprise given how shook up Jamie had been—and probably still was to some extent—and Alex patted the mattress lightly. "All right. How about you lie down for a little while longer and try to get some sleep that doesn't involve nightmares or being wedged into a corner. I've got some feedback forms to fill out for the conference," mostly the ones he'd skipped out on by leaving early, "and unpacking to do, but I'll wake you up in a couple hours and we can do some grocery shopping then. Okay?" That would give him some time to dig through his medical texts for what he was looking for, too, and it would be easy enough to check in on Jamie a few times to make sure that his sleep stayed peaceful.

"Okay," Jamie agreed quietly.


	22. Jamie: Back to School

_Thanks to everyone who read and to MelsieR for reviewing._

* * *

"Hey," Catie greeted, dropping her backpack down on the table next to Jamie.

"Hey," he returned with a grin. "Welcome back. How was your trip?"

"Noisy. Like my little cousin used some of his gelt—or more to the point my aunt let him use it, despite knowing that we were going to be driving for six hours—to buy a kazoo noisy, and then on the way back we all had to hear a recap of everything he'd done over the past week and never mind that we were all there too. I swear, the next time someone insists 'Sure, we can all fit in one car' I'm going to pull a _Home Alone._ That or tie him to the roof rack."

Jamie snickered.

"Watch it, or I'll tell him you want to hear a concert the next time you come over." She shrugged out of her jacket, piling it up on her lap. "So what about you? Anything interesting happen while I was gone?"

He grimaced. "Well, I'm grounded."

"Again? What did you do this time?"

"Stayed all night at Cory and Isaac's without leaving a message. And there was this whole smoking thing." He waved a hand. "It was only one puff, but he got mad anyway."

Caitie's lips thinned. "Smoking is a disgusting habit, and you shouldn't be doing it at all. And you know it."

Given how straightedge she was, he probably shouldn't have expected her support on that particular point. "Yeah, yeah, I've got it." He had to write a whole report about it before he was done being grounded, and Alex's response to the one he'd tried to give him yesterday had been a pointed look and a suggestion that Jamie actually try doing some reading first. Jamie's teachers knew better than to expect that sort of thing, but Alex was a whole lot pickier than any of them, and in retrospect he should have known that. Not that he was planning on admitting it, but he should also probably count himself lucky that Alex had only ended up assigning him one chapter, because if Alex had decided to make him read the whole entire giant book he'd pulled out Jamie would probably still be working on it come next Christmas break.

"Anyway, if I pulled a stunt like staying out all night without saying where I was, my mom would probably ground me for life," Caitie continued.

He shrugged. Someone giving a damn where he was was still a beyond-weird experience. And he couldn't believe that he'd freaked out at Alex like that. It was _Alex_ for goodness sake. He'd never even slapped Jamie for smart-mouthing—hell, not even for swearing at him back before Thanksgiving—so obviously he wasn't just going to up and start beating him.

Jamie was pretty sure that Alex hadn't even known what he was upset about at first, at least not until Jamie had finally said the words. And once he had, Alex had been very clear that nothing like that was going to happen. Which should have been obvious too given what he'd made Jamie promise before the holidays about telling if anyone ever hurt him on purpose, but Jamie had been so tired and out of it by then he hadn't really been thinking.

He didn't quite get why Alex said he'd been scared by Jamie's panic attack, but whatever the reason had been Alex hadn't tried to make Jamie talk after all of it, which had been a relief. And when he'd come to check on Jamie—which was totally what he'd been doing, no matter what he said—and found Jamie unable to sleep, he'd made him hot chocolate and let him lie down on the couch for a while. Jamie finally had fallen asleep there for a couple hours, mostly because Alex remained kind of a dork and had been watching a documentary on TV about the speed different kinds of grass grew or something equally fascinating while he worked.

"Other than that, how have things been?" Caitie asked, interrupting his thoughts. "Cory and Isaac up to anything interesting?"

"Not really. Isaac's got full time hours, now, though, so he's thinking he might be able to get a place of his own soon. That'd be kind of cool." And absolutely not the kind of thing he was ever telling Alex, who already didn't like the fact that their parents weren't around in their shared apartment.

"No kidding. What about Kenny, have you seen him at all? Or more to the point, has he gotten out of whatever this whole jerk phase he's been stuck in is?"

"That's..." Jamie still hadn't talked to anyone about what he'd seen, the damn needles and all of that, and even if Caitie was on the list of people he thought _should_ know, the rapidly-filling school cafeteria wasn't even close to the place to get into it. "It's complicated. I'll talk to you after school, all right?"

She frowned and started to ask, only to stop abruptly, her eyes locking on something past Jamie. He turned to find Sonja approaching.

"Hey, good, I'm glad I caught you before classes," she greeted.

His stomach twisted. Alex had said he wouldn't hit him, but he'd never said that he wouldn't get rid of him. And it was...it had been over a month now. Even if Jamie hadn't screwed up he'd probably been getting sick of him; that had just been the final straw.

"Can we find an empty classroom and chat for a few minutes?" Sonja asked. "I think we've got a few minutes until the bell rings, unless they've changed the schedule recently."

"I...sure." It wasn't like he got to say 'no.' He nodded to Caitie. "See you in class."

"I'm sorry to surprise you like this, but I was afraid I wouldn't be able to make it in at lunchtime," Sonja said as Jamie shouldered his backpack and grabbed his coat, leading them around clusters of kids and towards the nearest door. He wasn't one of the overachiever types and would probably get in trouble if he got caught wandering around random classrooms before school even started—or he'd get blamed if anybody found anything wrong, anyway, and never mind if it had been wrong long before he'd even started high school—but they were a lot less likely to care if an adult was with him.

"No problem," he made himself say as they exited the cafeteria. "When do I need to be packed up?" He had plenty of practice, after all, and at least this way he wouldn't have to finish that stupid book report. That was something.

"Well, not at all yet." She nodded in thanks as he picked a classroom at random and held the door open for her. "We've got a good group signed up for New Years', but classes don't even start until next week." She took a seat at one of the desks. "That's why I wanted to talk to you, to make sure that you and Dr. Freeman were still doing okay. Are you?"

Jamie's head jerked up. "Alex didn't call you?"

"No. Should he have?" She nodded towards one of the other seats.

Oops. He shook his head as he dropped his coat onto the desk and swung his backpack down on top of it before taking the seat. "No."

"Jamie?"

A quick shrug. "It's nothing, I just thought he might have."

"Has there been some kind of trouble?" she pressed.

He knew her well enough to know that she wasn't going to let it go, and he shrugged again. "Nothing major. I sort of stayed out with friends without telling him a couple days ago. Nights ago." He hesitated for a moment. "And smoked a cigarette." Because if she asked Alex, and she might, he would tell her, and never mind that 'smoked' only meant one puff which wasn't really smoking at all in the grand scheme of things in Jamie's opinion. This was what he got for running his mouth. "He already grounded me, anyway." She looked a little surprised at that—then again, she didn't know Alex—and he waved it off. "It's fine. Was there something else you needed?"

"No, I just wanted to check in on you. It's not a situation I would have picked for you, and now that kids are being picked back up from respite care I could push for a bed in one of the group homes if you didn't want to keep staying with him. I should have asked earlier, but..."

But there hadn't been any space earlier so it wouldn't have done any good, he knew that as well as she did. And he couldn't help flushing a little as he thought about what he she'd said, but it wasn't like she was wrong. There had been times when that panic attack...well, it wouldn't have been the total nonsense it had been this weekend. And it wouldn't have ended with a mug of hot chocolate and him falling asleep on a couch to the sound of keyboard keys clicking, either.

"But if you're sure you're okay, I won't worry about finding another placement until this class finishes," she continued.

Based on past experience, 'this class' was a pack of people who thought that signing up to take in some random kid made a good New Years' resolution, and from what he'd seen it generally went about as well as people whose resolutions involved getting healthy or learning a language or whatever, but then again it wasn't like the foster parents who signed up at other times of the year were all that great either. Not when it came to fostering teenagers, anyway. At least if she was going to wait until the class actually finished he'd be able to stay with Alex through most of February. If Alex would let him.

"So, are you sure you're okay?" she repeated.

"Yeah. I'm good. We're good." At least he thought they were, and if Alex hadn't called hopefully he was right.

"What does 'grounded' mean?" she asked after a moment.

It was grounded, what did she think it meant? But that wasn't an answer she'd accept, and he shook his head. "I'm supposed to go straight home after school and stay there unless I've got work. Plus no TV—" because Alex's news shows and boring documentaries did _not_ count as TV as far as he was concerned—"and there's this whole book report thing plus all my normal homework. And probably some chores." It was boring, and the book report was worse, but aside from not getting hit, it also wasn't like he didn't get dinner or snacks or blankets or anything like that.

Although now that he thought about it, being grounded was going to make talking to Caitie after school today tricky since even if Alex usually took a shift at the hospital on Mondays, it wasn't usually an evening one. Damn it.

Sonja looked at him for a long moment and then nodded. "All right. I'll talk to Dr. Freeman too, but don't worry about packing just yet. And maybe try to behave from here on out?"

"Yeah, yeah."


	23. Alex: Back to Normal

_Thanks to everyone who read and to MelsieR for reviewing._

* * *

"Hey, Jamie," Alex greeted, shifting his briefcase so he could take off his coat as he came in from the garage. "How was school?" Judging by the faintly murderous look Jamie shot him from his seat at the kitchen table, not particularly well, and he felt his lips twitch. "A lot of fun, huh?"

"It was busy," Jamie returned. " _Everybody_ assigned homework since apparently we're all supposed to be so well rested." Another scowl. "And math is stupid, and my head hurts."

"Math is not stupid," Alex returned, not for the first time, although he offered Jamie a sympathetic smile for the rest. A headache explained why Jamie was at the kitchen table rather than stretched out on the couch or the floor in front of it as he usually preferred; short of Alex's desk it had the best lighting in the house. He moved to look over Jamie's shoulder for a moment, hanging his coat over one of the other chairs. "You don't work tonight, right?"

"Nah, tomorrow and Thursday."

"Okay, then, I'll take a look at it with you after dinner. All right?"

Jamie nodded and pushed himself to his feet, following Alex into his room. It was a little unusual when Alex hadn't specifically told him to, but he'd also never forbidden Jamie from coming in.

He took off his jacket and turned to hang it up in his closet as Jamie found a spot against his desk.

"My social worker came to school today," Jamie said after a minute.

Alex paused and turned to look at him. "Does she do that often?" It seemed like those kinds of meetings should be happening wherever Jamie was calling home, not between his classes.

He shrugged. "Sometimes. It's easier for her to find me there when I'm bouncing around since it's one place I'm usually going to be."

"It better be one place you're _always_ going to be," Alex couldn't help but interject. Jamie was a smart kid, math issues notwithstanding, and he didn't need to be skipping classes.

Jamie rolled his eyes but had the sense to correct himself at a pointed look. "Sorry."

"Thank you. So, what did your social worker have to say?" He knew that he should be hoping that she'd found another home for Jamie. The kid needed some stability, and after the scare he'd had a few days ago parents who had some idea of what they were doing would be an improvement too. But he was still calming down after that scare, and Alex didn't like the idea of him being yanked off somewhere new until he was back to himself again.

"Well, they've got a new class starting, but it won't finish until February so they're not likely to have anywhere else to send me until then. I mean, she wants to talk to you, and she might be able to find me a spot in a group home if you don't want to keep—"

"Jamie," Alex interrupted firmly as he started to pick up speed. "What have I told you?" He didn't wait for Jamie to reply. You're welcome to stay here until she finds a new foster family. Unless you want to leave?" A pause. "You're still going to finish that book report either way."

Jamie made a face but shook his head quickly, lips twitching up a little, and Alex nodded and resumed his usual routine.

"Good. Now what's this class that people are starting?"

"Foster parenting classes. For the people who decided to foster kids for their New Year's resolution. Plus a few others, I guess, but mostly it's just them."

Alex put his shoes on their shelf and turned to look at him. "Please tell me that's a joke. People don't actually decide to adopt children for New Year's, right?"

"Foster," Jamie corrected with another quick shake of his head. "Nobody adopts us ever. But yeah, there's always a group signing up around now. Most of them even finish the class and get okayed to have foster kids, although they generally change their minds pretty quick once they actually get stuck with one of us."

Alex echoed his head shake. Not that he had any idea what these classes entailed, but at least when most people made New Year's resolutions it only affected themselves when they failed. He didn't much like the idea of Jamie getting jerked around like _that_ , either. He started to reach for his belt, only to halt at a quick flinch from Jamie. Right. Not the thing to do with him in the room just now. "You're fine to stay here, kiddo, but why don't you go start chopping up some peppers and onions for dinner, and I'll join you in a couple minutes?" he suggested.

Jamie flushed a little but didn't argue as he dipped his head and pushed himself off the desk and towards the door, and Alex waited until he was gone before finishing his routine and then heading out to the kitchen himself.

"What do you think about pork chops to go with the vegetables?" Alex asked, pausing to grab his coat and hang it up correctly. Not that Jamie ever argued about what Alex made for meals, even if he didn't always recognize it, but Alex was trying to remember to include him in cooking a little more. If not right now, Jamie would need to know those kinds of skills in a couple years anyway.

Jamie nodded quickly and would have ceded his spot in front of the cutting board to Alex when Alex returned to the kitchen, but Alex gestured for him to keep chopping and went to dig a couple pork chops out of the freezer himself. He usually bagged them individually, but while he had Jamie, he should probably start doubling them up and save the bags. Maybe tripling; Jamie was good about getting himself snacks now, but he was still young enough to be hungry most of the time. "When you're done, pull down that recipe book on the end and see what matches up under 'pork.'"

It didn't take Jamie long to finish working through the vegetables and tossing them into the pan Alex had put on the stove, but when he had the book in front of him he grimaced and swiped at his forehead again. Alex frowned as he moved up beside him.

"Do you still have a headache?"

"Yeah." He waved it off. "It's fine. It happens sometimes, and it takes a while to wear off after it does. And the writing in that book you gave me is really tiny."

Alex's frown deepened. The book he'd given Jamie was a typical medical text so the print was probably a little smaller than the textbooks Jamie used in high school, but nothing unusual. "Do you get headaches a lot when you read?" He didn't remember hearing anything like that before from Jamie, either with regards to school or the Red Cross books that Jamie was working through at the station. And those definitely didn't have the greatest type.

"Not a lot, just sometimes. It's worse if it's little print. Or if it's boring."

The last was said with a pointed look at Alex, who raised an eyebrow in return. "If you don't like boring reading, you should probably behave, shouldn't you? But come with me, I want to check something." Because he didn't consider pain acceptable as discipline, and there were a couple pretty obvious possibilities for why small print might cause Jamie issues.

Jamie looked at the pork chops Alex had just put in the pan. "Are we allowed to leave those alone?"

"For a few minutes, although not much longer than that if we want to get those spices you just looked up put in. Come on."

Jamie trailed him to the library, and Alex stopped him in the doorway and nodded to the bookshelf directly across the room from them. "What's the title on the book straight in front of you on the top shelf? The hardcover one with the blue spine."

"Alex, I can read."

"I know, Jaim. Humor me."

" _The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_."

Alex took a quick look at the shelf beside him and then pulled down a book, flipping it to a random page before handing it over, and Jamie was clearly fighting to keep his eye roll to himself as he picked a couple lines and read them.

Alex thanked him and then took that book back and pulled down a second one. "What about this?" This type was small even by his standards, and Jamie groaned and brought the book closer to his face. Much closer than before as his forehead creased, and that was enough for Alex as he took it back before Jamie could strain his eyes further. "Okay, never mind."

"Alex?" Jamie asked, looking back up at him. "I can read it, I swear."

"I know you can, kiddo, your reading abilities were never in question. When was the last time that you saw an optometrist?"

"What?"

"An eye doctor. Do you remember your parents or foster parents or anyone ever taking you? There would probably have been one of those eye charts in the office with the big Es on it like you see in the movies."

Jamie scoffed. "Not likely. My dad never wanted to take me to the doctor ever, and no foster parents waste time on things that aren't actually problems." He snorted. "Heck, they mostly ignore things that are. It's not like I can't see or anything."

"Well, for distance I agree with you. I could barely have read that title from here if I didn't already know what it said. But I think some reading glasses might not be out of the question if you're having to hold books that close and getting headaches. You said that your social worker was going to be calling me at some point?"

"Probably, yeah. She said she wanted to talk to you, anyway."

"Okay, good. I'll ask if there's anything special that needs to happen to get you into an optometrist or if I can just take you to mine, and we'll get your eyes checked. It shouldn't be too hard to get an appointment at this time of year." He put the book back on the shelf and nodded to the door. "Come on, let's go finish dinner and then we'll see about your math homework."


	24. Sonja: From the Outside

_Thanks to everyone who read and to MelsieR, haikwoshevo, and a guest for reviewing._

* * *

"Alex Freeman," the man on the other end of the phone greeted, and Sonja heaved a mental sigh of relief. She didn't have time for phone tag today. Well, she never had time for phone tag, but somehow that never seemed to matter.

"Hello, this is Sonja Travers, Jamie's social worker," she greeted. "Do you have a few minutes to talk?"

"Of course, he said that you were probably going to call."

"He did?" she asked in surprise. In her experience Jamie generally went out of his way to avoid talking to his foster fathers. Then again, there was a fair amount that surprised her about Jamie's current living situation.

"Yes." There was the sound of shifting around on the other end of the phone, and then, "Sorry, I'm in the middle of cleaning up my office and I needed to move a few things out of the way so I could sit down. From what he said, he might be staying with me through February?"

"If that's all right with you," she agreed. "It would make things much easier."

"That's fine. As I've told him, I've got the space, and I don't mind having him around."

And even more than that he had a clean background check and Jamie seemed to trust him, and she couldn't help but wonder if he might be willing to keep Jamie beyond the next two months. Granted that Jamie had only been with him a little over one month at this point, well within what social workers referred to as the honeymoon period behavior-wise, but Jamie knew the score as well as she did. And he wasn't known for being overly cooperative when he didn't like a situation regardless of the timing. The fact that he'd accepted being grounded and assigned a book report, whatever that was about, for doing something he shouldn't have rather than just blowing the whole thing off was damn near a miracle as far as she was concerned. "He did say that he'd gotten into a little bit of trouble recently," she said after a moment. No sense in springing something like that on the man right off the bat and possibly scaring him off. "I know what he said, but do you mind if I ask you what happened?"

"He stayed out all night and scared the hell out of me," Dr. Freeman said immediately. "But we've got that sorted now, I think, although I still need to remember to get him some emergency money. The smoking, however, is going to stop." There was no give in his tone at that, and it was followed by a moment of silence before, "I…"

"Dr. Freeman?" she prompted when he trailed off. "Is something wrong?"

"Alex, please. And I don't know how much you can legally tell me so I'm not quite sure what to ask, but Jamie panicked after it all happened. This past weekend, I mean." Another pause. "I'm sure the nightmare didn't help, and I'm well aware that he doesn't like being touched. He's flinched away from me before."

That wasn't good news from Sonja's perspective, but he kept speaking before she could say anything.

"But we've covered that he doesn't _have_ to let anyone touch him, me included, if it's not something like a medical necessity, and I thought we'd covered that no one was allowed to hurt him, either. Until this weekend when he basically said outright that he expected me to take a belt to him. Given that I've never raised a hand to him, that makes me think that the abuse was severe."

He was, unfortunately, entirely correct, but equally unfortunately she couldn't discuss it with a person who wasn't actually Jamie's foster parent. Although he wasn't asking for confirmation of the abuse—not really a surprise given what he'd just described—so... "You're right that I can't answer with any specifics, but I feel comfortable saying that Jamie does not normally deal well with men. To the point where I would never have considered placing him in a household with a single man because I'd have expected him to run away the first night." Not that he always lasted much longer than that in two-parent households, but it was men who triggered most of his fears.

"I'm sure he would have liked to do just that back at Thanksgiving, but the snowstorm made it impossible," Alex said after a moment. "And he already knew me, which might have helped a little." A sigh. "I don't think this past weekend would have been so bad if he hadn't already been exhausted; we've butted heads before and he's never reacted like that no matter how much I yelled. But he did, and I didn't like seeing it. Or not knowing what to do."

"Well, I wasn't there and didn't talk to him much about what happened beyond asking what he'd done to get grounded so I can't speak to that, but I can say that he seemed to be back to his normal self and perfectly happy with his living situation by the time I spoke to him on Monday. Unfortunately a lot of kids in the system have backgrounds that are less than ideal, and sometimes the best you can do is take things one day at a time. With teenagers it tends to be even harder because they do not like to open up and occasionally do things that even they know are not in their best interest." It was practically a hallmark of teenage behavior, unfortunately, and when you were talking about foster parents who hadn't raised a child since infancy their ability to cope...varied.

"Jamie's a good kid," Alex said. "Even if he needs to be reminded about that sometimes. Could I ask what this foster parent class that he mentioned is?"

"It's actually a set of classes, an orientation program that we hold for new foster parents every few months. It runs for eight weeks at a time, and we give a broad overview of how the system works and how children get into the system, what kind of issues they might see in the kids they foster, avenues for assistance, basic first aid training...basically a range of things that all new foster parents need to know. And probably most importantly we get our new foster parents set up with a support group among their peers and try to match them to a mentor who's had several years of foster care experience."

"And people just…get kids after that?"

It was Sonja's turn to pause. "It's not the greatest system in the world, but it's what we've got. Is there any chance that _you_ might be interested in taking the class? Keeping Jamie longer term?" She'd hoped to find out if he had any leanings in that direction, maybe give him a nudge if he hadn't thought about it, but given how less-than-thrilled he sounded about how children were assigned homes there was no reason not to ask outright.

"I'm not any kind of parent," Alex said immediately. "That was no joke when he panicked the other day, and even if it was mostly exhaustion it took pointing out that I wouldn't even be capable of hurting him if he decided to fight back to snap him anywhere near out of it."

"No one is instantly a good parent," Sonja said, just as quickly. She'd reassured plenty of foster parents about that over the years. "Given Jamie's history, the fact that he did calm down says a lot about you. The classes aren't a lot, a couple hours every Thursday evening for eight weeks." Which probably didn't say great things about the foster care system in and of itself, but again, it was what they had.

"The scheduling shouldn't be a problem unless I have a hospital shift," he said after a moment, "but to be clear, I'm not interested in any other kids besides Jamie."

"I understand that. You wouldn't be the first person to become a foster parent for a specific child." Most of the time when that happened it was for a relative, but not always. "And you don't have to decide now. You could always take the classes, and if you change your mind later Jamie never has to know about it."

"No," Alex said. "He knows my schedule, and I'm not going to lie to him. And if he doesn't want to stay with me, I'm not going to force him." He seemed to hesitate for a moment, and then, "Put my name down. If he says no, I'll let you know."

"Wonderful, thank you. I'll email you the address and the class materials. Oh—and I will need to arrange a home visit at some point, and it would be better if you and Jamie were both there. Do you think you could make that work maybe some weekend or after school one day?"

"Sure, just let me know of a few days that might work for you and we'll find a time that we can both be there. If it's sometime in the next week or two I can pretty much guarantee that Jamie will be home after school."

"Excellent, then I'll add that to the email. And if you think of any other questions feel free to reply back with them."

"Ah—I do have one before you go, if you don't mind. What do I need to do to get Jamie in to see an optometrist?"

"What?"


	25. Jamie: Unexpected

_Thanks to everyone who read and to MelsieR for reviewing._

 _And thanks—I really liked this show when it first came out, and then I ran into it again on Youtube a couple years ago. There had been some old stuff I'd written way back when that never went anywhere, but rewatching it I remembered again how it had just sort of ended with a lot of open possibilities (still not sure what was up with that; it seemed like Disney kept shows that were a lot worse around a lot longer). I figured I'd go back and write how I'd wanted it to go, and if other people enjoyed it too, then great :)._

* * *

"Stairs are stupid," Jamie said with a groan as he pulled the car door shut. Even _that_ hurt after the day they'd just had. "Weren't elevators invented like a billion years ago?"

Tyler grinned as he buckled himself in on the driver's side. "Come on, they're not that bad. You could always join Hank and I the next time Coach has us running them at practice."

"I'm sorry, I thought I just heard you say both 'run' and 'practice.'" Jamie's legs—and arms, and back—ached from having to carry that stupid stretcher up and down about a billion flights today; the fact that Tyler and Hank did that kind of thing for fun was just insane. "It's against my religion to do either of those things. Uh, left out of here, and then a right once you hit third."

Tyler's grin turned into a laugh as he started the car and turned out into traffic. What little there was of it at this time of night. "I don't think history class covered that religion."

"I just invented it."

"Yeah, good luck with that on the test tomorrow." He made a face. "Which I still need to study for given that we've been running all night and I haven't even had time to take my book out of my backpack. Time for another cram session in study hall, I guess."

Jamie groaned again. "Did you have to remind me? Anyway, who gives a test the week after we get back back from vacation? Giving us homework was bad enough!" Not that he'd done a great job of paying attention in history class before the break, at least not beyond the minimum he'd had to to pass, but expecting anyone to remember anything after two weeks off was insane. Plus it was a test on a _Friday_.

"Yeah, tell me about it," Tyler agreed. "And I guess my mom was talking to her sister over Christmas—my cousin's a senior this year—and now every other word out of her mouth is about colleges and GPAs and whatever. I mean, I know it's coming up, we're already getting fliers for summer SAT prep courses and all of that, but the way she's been going on if I freak her out with the horror of a bad grade I'll probably end up locked in a library for a month."

Jamie snorted. At least he didn't have to deal with that. Not that he had a clue what he was doing after next year, but at least college admissions weren't anywhere on his list of concerns. Although he was willing to bet that Tyler had never gotten an actual bad grade in his life; it was the kind of thing that the super squad didn't have quite the same frame of reference about as everyone else. "Oh, another left at this next light," he said quickly before Tyler could miss it.

"You're really still okay living with Alex?" Tyler asked as he made the turn. "I mean, he didn't not come to the station tonight because you murdered him and stuffed him in a closet or anything, right?"

"What? No, I didn't murder Alex. Or stuff him in a closet. We're fine." As weird as that still seemed. "The message said something came up with one of the other doctors and the hospital asked him to stay and cover the shift. Or part of it, anyway. I know he wasn't planning on it, he was talking about getting a bunch of old paperwork cleared out of his office, but..." He shrugged, or started to before remembering that his shoulders hurt too. _Stupid_ stairs. And he was glad that Tyler had offered to give him a ride home after he'd gotten that message because after all the running up and down they'd been doing the last thing he'd wanted to do was be stuck waiting for a city bus. Their shift had ended at ten so it wasn't that late, but the buses that ran at this time of night were few and far between and he probably wouldn't have made it home until close to midnight.

He needed to do something about his bike soon. Or, rather, he needed to do something about his bike's empty gas tank because even if he hadn't been planning to catch a ride with Alex when he came back to pick up his boxes, he still wouldn't have been able to ride over. Not without risking running out of gas halfway through the trip, anyway. The last job he'd picked up had been for Micah's uncle before Christmas, and although his grandmother sometimes slipped him a few dollars when he visited—he was pretty sure that it was part of the 'spending money' the nurses gave all of the residents when they took a bus to the local shopping centers for an afternoon—last time she hadn't, and the only things in his wallet right now were his bus pass and his ID.

Which...it wasn't a huge deal. He could get around on the buses until he picked up another job. He'd done it before, and that was without Alex giving him rides on the really late nights at the station. It was annoying, though.

"Next turn?"

"Oh, uh, take a right up here. Where the streetlight is. And then it's the third house on—yeah, that one." Tyler was actually pretty good about the fact that he was staying with Alex when he thought about it. Crazy questions about murdering Alex aside, he was definitely better than Val or Hank who still sometimes asked too many _other_ questions. Some of that was probably just that Tyler was sensitive enough about his own father and that whole mess that he wasn't about to ask questions about Jamie's lack of family, but...well, Jamie would take what he could get.

Tyler pulled to a halt in the driveway, but judging by the complete lack of lights Alex still wasn't home. Jamie grabbed his backpack from between his feet and opened the door. "Thanks a lot for the ride."

"No problem. See you at school."

"See you."

Tyler drove off as he let himself in the front door. No Alex meant leftovers for dinner...he kind of wanted spaghetti, and he kind of thought that he could manage it, but on second thought he wasn't about to touch the stove without Alex there. Just in case. Anyway, there was still some pork from the other night that had been pretty good.

He was hungrier than he'd thought and finished it in pretty much record time, and after a mug of hot chocolate he went and buried himself under his blankets where even if his muscles were still complaining, at least he didn't have to move. They weren't on again until Sunday. Hopefully he'd be recovered by then.

He must have drifted off a little because the next thing he was aware of was the sound of the garage door opening. He was debating whether he should get up and go say hi to Alex when there was a light tap at his door.

"Jamie? Are you still awake?"

"Yeah."

"May I come in?"

"Sure." He actually kind of thought Alex might listen if he said no, but there was no good reason not to talk to him.

"Are you feeling okay?" Alex asked as he pushed the door open. "It's only a little past eleven, that's pretty early for you to be asleep."

"Yeah, we just had to carry that stupid stretcher up and down about a billion stairs today. I think every elevator in the city decided to break for its New Years resolution. And then every callout was up on like the sixth floor." He scowled. "I didn't even know that there were that many buildings with six floors in this city."

Alex's lips twitched. "Ah. Well, is that something that cookies might make better? Someone brought a whole platter of them to the hospital and I grabbed a few on my way out."

Cookies were more than enough to make Jamie wriggle free of most of his blankets and hold out a hand for the napkin Alex offered. And then offer it back because he did have some manners. "Do you want one?"

"I had plenty at the hospital, thanks. Was there anything serious in those callouts?" He gestured to the head of Jamie's bed, and Jamie shook his head and took a bite of the first cookie even as he slid over to make room for Alex to sit down. "Nah. Well, one guy fell and messed up his knee really bad—like it was _gross_ how many angles things were sticking out at—but other than that not really. Just a lot of up and down and broken elevators." He hesitated. "What happened at the hospital?"

"Oh, one of the other doctors had a family emergency upstate. I guess her father fell this afternoon and even though he should be fine she needed to go handle some things. Carter was going to take the whole shift, but then he couldn't find a babysitter to cover until his wife got home, so..." He waved a hand. "Anyway, the usual coverage will kick in tomorrow, this was just a one-time thing. Now, just to make sure, you haven't had any more headaches or anything like that?"

"Nah. There wasn't really time to try to read at the station anyway." And history test aside, unlike Alex his teachers knew better than to expect that kind of thing from him.

"Did you at least get your homework done?"

Although they might start expecting things if Alex kept making him do homework. "Some of it, I guess," he hedged.

"Jamie."

"I'll do it before school tomorrow," he said with a groan. Or he'd do what he absolutely had to to keep any notes from getting sent home, at least, even if that meant joining Tyler for study hall. Ick.

"Thank you. And I talked to your social worker, and we'll go to the optometrist on Saturday and get that all sorted out."

"For real?" That was a surprise. "Usually it takes them months to approve anything."

"Well, we're going to cheat a little. You're old enough to agree to some stuff for yourself, and I can deal with the paperwork side."

Part of him kind of wanted to laugh at the idea of Alex— _Alex_ , of all people—cheating on rules, but he was pretty sure that that really meant that they hadn't approved paying for anything. "I'll be fine, really," he said with a quick shake of his head. "It's been like this as long as I can remember."

"That doesn't make it okay."

He picked at the blanket with the hand that wasn't occupied by cookies. "But it'll take them forever to reimburse you. Like forever forever. It takes long enough even when you've got approval." He'd heard plenty about that from previous foster parents whenever they'd had to give him money for anything, even if it had been approved.

"You let me worry about that part. I know you're a tough kid, but you still owe me a book report, and I don't want you hurting yourself trying to do the reading. Or the homework that you're going to be doing over the weekend if it doesn't get finished tomorrow."

Jamie made a face. The easy way to fix that was to not make him do the report or the homework at all, but he didn't have to be a genius to know how well that suggestion would be taken.

"This is for you too," Alex said, digging something else out of his pocket and handing it over. "Emergencies only, but if you get stuck somewhere like you did last weekend, you use it. Clear?

Jamie frowned and then immediately pushed the fold of paper back at Alex when he realized that it was money. At least a twenty, maybe more. "I don't—I can't—"

"Jaim, it's for you," Alex said. "For emergencies, like I said. Put it in your wallet. If you don't need it you don't need it, and if you do you'll have it. I don't want you getting stuck somewhere you shouldn't be because you don't have a way out."

He shook his head again.

"It's not a suggestion. It goes in your wallet for emergencies. Is that understood?"

Alex pretty clearly wasn't going to relent, and after a minute Jamie dipped his head. And decided he'd sneak it back onto Alex's desk sometime when Alex wasn't looking because he wasn't...Alex shouldn't do things like that. He could take care of himself.

"Thank you." Alex nodded to the almost-empty napkin in his hand. "Considering how fast you're going through those cookies, did you have a real dinner at any point?"

"Yeah, I had the rest of the pork and vegetables from a couple days ago when I got home. You didn't want them, did you?"

"No, I ate at the hospital," Alex said immediately. Which Jamie kind of appreciated because even if he knew that Alex wouldn't be angry about him eating the leftovers, it was a habit to be careful about that kind of thing. "I talked to your social worker about some other stuff, too, though, besides the optometrist," he continued after a moment. "That's what I really needed to talk to you about."

Jamie felt his breath catch a little. Alex had said that he could stay until whoever he was going to end up with finished their class, and he wasn't likely to change his mind at the same time he gave him emergency money and was planning to take him to the eye doctor and all of that, but Jamie had had plenty of situations go wrong before.

"What would you think about staying here after February?"

"I...what?" He wasn't sure what he'd expected to hear, but he was definitely sure that that wasn't it.

Alex shifted a little. "Well, when I talked to your social worker earlier, she invited me to the first of those foster parent classes. I guess they start next Thursday. And despite what happened tonight, Thursday evenings are usually free for me."

"But you don't want a kid. Why would they make you waste your time like that?" Alex already all kinds of stuff on his calendar with the station and the hospital and all of that; it wasn't fair to make him do stuff he didn't want to in the free time he did have.

"Well, I don't want some random kid," Alex agreed. "But I don't have any arguments with the one I've already got. Or, rather, we've had plenty of arguments, but we've managed okay, haven't we?"

Jamie shook his head as he realized what Alex was saying, letting the last cookie fall as he struggled to get free of his remaining blankets. "You don't want me. Grown-ups never want me."

"Jaim?" Alex frowned. "If I didn't want you to stay, I wouldn't have asked."

"No!" Another shake, and Jamie pushed himself backwards again, kicking at the loose loop of bedsheet around his ankle.

"Jamie, _stop,"_ Alex snapped.

He froze.

Alex lowered his voice. "Kiddo, you're going to fall off the bed and hurt yourself if you keep scooting back like that. Come on." He patted the mattress beside him. "Come sit. I'm starting to think that maybe I should have waited until this weekend to talk to you."

Jamie shrugged and then shook his head again as he moved to where Alex indicted. Or an arm length or so away, anyway; he wasn't very interested in being within grabbing range right now and never mind that Alex didn't grab.

"Yes, I want you to stay," Alex said firmly. "But I can't force you and wouldn't try if there's somewhere else you'd rather go."

"There isn't anywhere. You know that." His fingers gripped the blanket hard enough to make his hands go white, and never mind that that made the muscles in his forearms ache again.

"So why don't you think about it?" Alex asked. "You don't have to decide right now. The offer isn't going away."

"But they'll make you take stupid classes and shit," Jamie couldn't help but point out. Alex was busy and he was trouble and no one ever wanted teenagers. Especially teenage boys. Doubly especially him.

"Language, and I'll manage."


	26. Alex: Circling

_Thanks to everyone who read and to haikwoshevo and Ghostwriter for reviewing._

* * *

"Jamie come on, time to go," Alex called in the general direction of Jamie's door.

"Just a minute."

"It was a minute five minutes ago. I want to get the grocery shopping done before your appointment," Alex returned. The grocery store was bad enough in the morning on the weekends, he didn't even care to contemplate dealing with it after noon.

"I'm fine, Alex, honest," Jamie said, finally exiting his room. "It's just headaches sometimes, it's not like I haven't—"

"Jamie, what did I tell you?" He didn't wait for a reply. "Random headaches are not okay. We're going to see the optometrist today, whether before or after the grocery store, so dragging your feet isn't accomplishing anything except annoying me and making our day longer. And if the optometrist doesn't find anything wrong, we'll see about a regular doctor's appointment." Jamie should have been having those on a yearly basis anyway, especially given his asthma, but Alex would deal with that later since he was almost positive that a pair of reading glasses would solve the immediate problem.

Jamie scowled but had better sense than to argue further.

"Where's your coat?" Alex asked as he turned for the door.

"One minute."

"Jaim..."

"A minute for real," he grumbled.

Despite Jamie's attempt at delaying them, grocery shopping went more than quickly enough with the two of them splitting the list for them to get to the optometrist with a few minutes to spare. Dr. Talbott wasn't actually Alex's optometrist, but she was Dr. Connor's partner in the practice, and he had a feeling that Jamie would be a lot more comfortable with her standing over his chair than with him. It was something to consider when it came to finding a doctor for him as well.

It was a Saturday so there were several other customers in the office, and Alex got Jamie signed in and then sent him to go look at glasses frames while they waited. Which lasted about five minutes, and Jamie looked more than a little distressed as he came back to the line of chairs where Alex had taken a seat to wait.

"They're _expensive_ ," he said with a shake of his head, not even waiting for Alex to ask. "It's not—I don't—"

"Jamie. Enough. If you somehow managed to pick out several-hundred dollar frames, which I don't even think they carry here, then we'd need to have a talk, but glasses are just like medication or meals or blankets or that kind of thing. You aren't responsible for them."

Jamie scoffed.

"Jaim. You are not responsible for those things." Any more than he should be responsible for in-case-of-emergency money, but Alex had found that tucked under his laptop last night. Or a fold of money in the exact same denominations, anyway, and since he didn't typically carry cash it wasn't hard to guess where it had come from. He still hadn't decided how he was going to deal with that and didn't particularly want to try right here in the optometrist's office—as it was he was trying to keep his voice low to avoid attracting attention and wasn't sure how well he was managing—but he was absolutely not letting Jamie avoid getting glasses if he needed them either. "I don't know what's happened before," he acknowledged. "And I suspect if you tell me I won't like it. But right now all you need to worry about making sure the optometrist knows what does and doesn't work for you. All right?"

Jamie shrugged, looking considerably less than convinced, but before he could argue further one of the assistants called his name and a distinctly deer-in-the-headlights crossed his face.

"Is it okay if I go in with you, just in case they've got more questions about the paperwork?"

* * *

Alex winced a little as he shifted his briefcase to his other hand and his back twinged. The woman giving the CPR lesson in the foster parent class tonight had been woefully out of her league, and his own perfectionist tendencies had had him demonstrating and re-demonstrating more times than had probably been necessary. Certainly more times than his back had appreciated. And if it had been up to him he still wouldn't have passed half the would-be parents there.

At least it had taken his mind off the first part of the class, though. The introductions had been fairly standard, he was one of about twenty-five people—admittedly mostly couples—starting the class this week, and among them was one woman who was also taking the class to get custody of a particular child so that was somewhat reassuring. He got the impression that some of the other people were a little idealistic about the children they might get, but really, what did he know? It wasn't like he'd done this before either.

It was the social worker who'd spoken after that that had left him a little unsettled. The fact that she'd felt the need to run through a list of all the things that foster parents were not allowed to do, among them hitting children with or without objects, denying them food, locking them in—or out; had they not seen the temperatures this time of year?—had not been comforting. Nor had the stubborn expressions on the faces of a few of her audience members, especially since Alex had initially assumed that everything she was saying was simply a formality. He was aware that his own childhood had been more than a little unusual and his perspective was probably somewhat skewed because of it, but obviously no one would actually do those things.

Alex shook his head. He couldn't do anything about any of it, and presumably the social workers had ways to weed people who would violate those prescriptions out. Even if they clearly weren't always successful, judging by how Jamie sometimes reacted to him. He made no claims to sainthood and most definitely got loud when he was angry, but getting violent wouldn't even occur to him.

The light was on in the living room, but he couldn't hear anything, just as well since Jamie wasn't supposed to be watching television while he was grounded, and when he entered he found Jamie asleep on the couch. His new glasses were still on his face, and there was a book under his head.

Alex carefully slid the book free and put it on the coffee table. Science, it looked like, but the book Alex had assigned him a chapter of was on the table as well which he took to be a good sign. Jamie hadn't said much about his book report since he'd foolishly tried to give Alex something he'd scribbled out without actually reading anything, but Alex had already decided that if he made a decent attempt to finish this weekend they'd call the matter settled. It had only been two weeks which was considerably less time than he'd originally intended to ground Jamie for, but he was only sixteen. And he did generally try to behave. And frankly Alex would rather be able to praise him for behaving himself over the course of his punishment than having to extend it because Jamie had done something that he shouldn't have because he still had no idea what else he could enforce. It was something that he hoped the foster parent class _would_ get to at some point.

Jamie only shifted a little when Alex pulled the blanket down over him, but removing his glasses was trickier, and he winced as Jamie grimaced and then one hand came up to rub at his eyes. "'lex?"

"Yeah," he said quietly, folding the glasses and putting them on top of the book. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up."

Jamie shook his head. "'s okay. I didn't mean to fall asleep."

Alex moved back a little so he wasn't standing over him. "How was your day?"

"Okay." Another swipe at his eyes. "Science is stupid."

Alex's lips twitched. "Science is not stupid."

Jamie grumbled a little, and then his eyes started to drift shut again.

Alex smiled and shook his head, heading for his room. He'd see if Jamie wanted him to take a look at his science homework before school tomorrow.

After he put his things away he went to the kitchen to make some tea and was surprised when Jamie joined him.

"Hey," Jamie said quietly.

"Hey." Alex pulled down a second mug and the canister of chocolate without bothering to ask if Jamie wanted any. "I thought you'd fallen back to sleep."

Jamie shrugged. "Was it bad?"

"Hm? Was what bad?"

He flushed and shrugged again, eyes on the ground. "The class."

"No, it was fine." He paused and then decided that talking about it was probably a good thing. Especially since he and Jamie hadn't actually talked any more about Jamie officially fostering here, at least not beyond Alex reminding him that he'd be home late tonight. They should have, and Alex knew it, but Jamie had already admitted that he didn't have any other options, and he had yet to figure out what he could say that that didn't amount to rubbing salt in an open wound. Talking about the class in general might help with that, or at least he could make the point that he genuinely didn't mind the requirement. "It was mostly just some introductory stuff today, and then they had a trainer come in for the first aid stuff that they apparently expect all foster parents to be qualified in. For the record, if I ever catch any of you kids—you kids or anyone else at the station, for that matter—being that sloppy with your CPR you're going to be retraining for a month."

"Yeah, right, we know better." He looked a little more sure when he said that though, and Alex nodded.

"I would hope so. He tilted his head. "And speaking of knowing better, how is your book report going?"

" _Alex_."


	27. Jamie: Jobs

_Thanks to everyone who read and to Ghostwriter for reviewing._

* * *

Jamie's watch beeped, and he muttered a curse, but it showed no signs of changing its mind about the time when he tilted his wrist so he could see the face. As much as that would make his life easier. He wasn't late _yet_ , but if he didn't leave to catch the bus in the next couple minutes he would be.

Unfortunately if he did leave to catch the bus he wouldn't finish the job, and if he didn't finish he'd still have zero gas money. Worse, if he didn't finish the job he might not get a chance at another one for a while. It was pretty rare that Micah's uncle's shop got so much work in the winter that he had anything after-hours for his nephew never mind his nephew's friend, and without gas money he couldn't even get out to Mr. Valda's shop to ask.

He scowled up at the undercarriage of the car. Alex had a late shift tonight so he should be okay if he stayed until the next bus. He might be cutting it close, but close wasn't the same as caught. But 'should' wasn't a guarantee, and Alex's shifts weren't always exactly timed, and...

He shook his head. He'd only gotten ungrounded a couple days ago, and he had no desire to get re-grounded again. He didn't want Alex to get mad like that again either, even if it had mostly just been his own stupid freak out that had blown everything out of proportion.

"Jamie?" Micah asked as Jamie rolled himself out from under the car. "What's up? You can't be done already."

"No, but I've got to go."

"What?" He extracted himself the rest of the way from under the hood of the car in the next bay. "I thought you said you were good for a job? Uncle Mike's going to be pissed if you just take off without finishing. He was already on the warpath about the guy who was supposed to get this stuff done earlier today and decided to no-show."

"Yeah, well, I don't like it much either, but I don't have much of a choice. I can't be late again." A pause. "Not right now, anyway. Maybe after Alex forgets." Which would be about about a million years from now knowing Alex, but even he was smart enough to give it a couple weeks before he pushed again. "Anyway, I just spent the last two hours cleaning that thing up so I doubt it'll take more than twenty minutes to get it put back together. Thirty minutes tops." If it hadn't been in such awful shape he'd have finished the whole job in the two hours he'd had, but...well, so it went when it came to this kind of work.

"He's not going to care, and he's not going to pay you unless you finish the whole job."

Jamie made a face. It wasn't like he didn't know that, this wasn't his first time doing a job here, but that didn't change the clock. "So finish it yourself if you want the money. I'll leave a note at the desk."

He didn't wait for Micah's response, scrubbing at his hands quickly with the towel hanging on the tool bench and then splashing some water on his face—not that any of it did much good; he was going to need a shower when he got home to deal with some of this grime—and then heading for the desk where his backpack and coat waited. Scribbling out a note only took a minute, but he heard the faint rumble of an engine as he was ripping the page off, and he grabbed his backpack and made a dash for the door.

He made it to the street just in time to see the bus disappear around the corner, and he couldn't help swearing at the retreating lights. From the look of things the driver hadn't even bothered to stop at the stop. Sure, at this time of night with no one sitting there he could kind of understand it, but...

With a sigh he headed back inside. So much for trying to follow the rules.

He grabbed the note he'd left on the desk thirty seconds ago, balling it up and tossing it in the garbage before shrugging out of his jacket and backpack. Might as well finish the job now, at least that way he'd have gas money again.

Plus he could figure out how to pay Alex back. He knew Alex said that he wasn't supposed to, the glasses weren't his responsibility, blah, blah, blah, but this wasn't like food where Alex would have bought it anyway and Jamie could pretend that the extra wasn't all for him since unlike some foster parents Alex never said anything about it. The glasses were just for him, and social services would probably _never_ pay Alex back since he hadn't gotten their 'official' approval first.

Of course, he wasn't sure how he'd do that since he still hadn't even convinced Alex to take back the emergency money. Just trying to hand it back had gotten him a _look_ , and putting it somewhere Alex would find it—because putting it somewhere he wouldn't find it kind of defeated the purpose—just meant getting it back the next night. And getting a look then. But whatever, at least he'd have the money to pay him back.

He turned to head back to the car he'd been working on and then hesitated. He might beat Alex home, but he might not, and Alex had said that he could—should—call if he was going to be late. He and Micah weren't supposed to touch anything in the shop except the tools they needed for the cars, but he figured that the phone counted in this instance. Or if it didn't he didn't care.

Alex didn't pick up, a small mercy there, but he did sound annoyed in the recording, and if that wasn't particularly unusual for Alex it also didn't make Jamie feel much better as he left a quick and probably mostly-incomprehensible message about missing the bus and being on the next one. At least if he did get home first he could delete it.

Micah gave him an odd look when he slid back under the car but didn't say anything, and Jamie had predicted right with about twenty minutes to finish the job. And another twenty cleaning up the tools since they were even more of a mess than his hands, but whatever. He still couldn't leave until the next bus came, though, so he spent some time helping Micah finish with his job, and by the time they were done there were only ten minutes until the next bus. The final bus of the night which Jamie was _not_ going to chance missing. With a wave at Micah grabbed his jacket and backpack and headed out into the cold. Micah would give him the money when his uncle paid him so probably at school tomorrow or the day after so that was one thing sorted, at least.

The lights weren't on at Alex's when the bus passed by it on the way to the stop, and Jamie heaved a quick sigh of relief as he jumped down the steps. Two things sorted.

Unfortunately his relief turned out to be premature as a car turned down the street as Jamie crossed behind the bus. Because of course it was Alex's and of course Jamie had no chance of getting inside before Alex saw him. He hated his life sometimes.

He hooked his fingers around the strap of his backpack as he headed up to the front door because so much for deleting the recording and Alex not finding out about him being late. Whatever, though. Alex might yell and ground him and make him write another book report or whatever but it wasn't like any of that was a big deal.

Alex was coming in from the garage at the same time Jamie flipped on the lights in the living room, and as expected he didn't look very happy. "You really thought it was a good idea to be late again?" he asked in lieu of greeting. "Or were you just hoping that I was going to be?"

"I didn't mean to!" Jamie protested immediately. "I had the alarm set on my watch and everything!" He wasn't about to admit that he had kind of been hoping for the latter, even if it was true. "But then I had to leave a note and the bus didn't even stop and..." He trailed off with a shrug.

Alex frowned and then abruptly gestured him closer. "What happened to you?"

Jamie stayed where he was. "What?"

"Did you bump your head on something?"

He gestured at Jamie's forehead, and Jamie reached up and was unsurprised to find the remains of grease spot just below his hairline. "Nah, nothing like that," he said with a quick shake of his head. "It's just a mess from the car I was fixing." He almost wished he'd said something else as Alex's irritated expression abruptly returned, but if it had been a bruise Alex would have wanted to poke at it, and he didn't want that either.

"I take it that was why you were late?" Alex asked.

"I didn't mean to," Jamie repeated. He gestured in the general direction of the phone. "I left a message."

Alex didn't exactly look appeased, but after a moment of staring he did give a slight nod in the direction of Jamie's room. "Go put your things away and get cleaned up and then we'll have a talk."


End file.
